Destiny of Understanding
by Kawaii Kyuubi Kitsune
Summary: Lilac is a human girl in a situation. A ninetales has planned a rather different way to take over the world, not for the usual reasons either, with Lilac being the centrepiece of the scheme. Too bad things aren’t going to be as simple as planned…
1. The Introductory Chapter

Chapter One: The Introductory Chapter 

There was a great calmness in the air. It was not the kind of calm before a storm but the calm that was only felt just before dawn. There was a little light coming from the horizon but it was still too early for there to be enough to illuminate the few clouds that were in the sky that were only visible because of some of the few remaining stars were being blocked by them.

It was certain that the clouds would glow pink at sunrise, which would certainly be a bad omen out at sea. Since the sea was out of sight, its omens did not carry here, so when the pink clouds arrived it would merely be a thing of beauty. Not too uncommon here, but rare enough so it kept seeming as amazing as it was. The beauty of the weather was not the only wondrous thing about this valley, as life itself here was too.

A few eevee lay sleeping in the long damp grass, their parents not minding that they were not hidden in their dens. The valley had always been isolated enough to keep out any threat. It was impossible to tell if the parents of these eevee were flareon, jolteon, vaporeon, umbreon, or espeon as all five, along with the little eevees, were a common sight here, quite unlike anywhere else. Legally the valley belonged to the All-Weather family, spiritually and physically it belonged to the eevee. The All-Weathers only made sure the greed of humanity never made it to the valley, keeping the eevee and the high quantities of evolution stones hidden.

It was still too dark for most locals to be awake, and too light for the rest, which consisted of most of the umbreon and a few nocturnal eevee.

Within the darkness of the ending night, a dark shadow sauntered into the valley. If it wanted any of them it would have already of gotten one and left, no it was after something a bit bigger, something that wasn't covered in fur quite unlike itself.

Its eyes appeared glow, in reality merely reflecting the little amount of light there was at this time so as to make it easier to see; of course the glow was getting dimmer by the minute as sunrise drew near.

It was large and fox-like in appearance, a long tuft of fur stretching backwards from the top of it's head, its nine tails were held high above the grass both out of confidence in it's superiority over all over in the valley and to make sure they wouldn't brush against the grass as it moved because that could risk making a sound. Every step it took was with absolute precision, making sure that when a paw went down it did not disturb the grass enough to make a sound louder than its own slow heart beat.

Even a quick glance would make one realize it was a ninetales, though a quick glance probably wouldn't of been enough to see that it was female, though certainly most Pokemon would have had a good enough sense of smell to have been able to know both those things without looking at all.

The light had now become bright enough to see at least some of what made the ninetales different: her fur was pure white instead of the usual creamy colour, something not often seen except in albino ninetales; her eyes were a pale blue, something that is also not often seen in ninetales, though it also proved that it wasn't an albino making it's variation in colour even more unusual. Soon someone would notice this, all too soon that same someone will have her direct attention.

The ninetales suddenly slowed down, her movements became even more cautious as she approached a patch of grass flattened to the ground because it was currently being slept on by the very thing that gave the unusual ninetales a reason to be in the valley.

There lay a young human female still deep in slumber unaware of the creature now looking down at her. It looked as though the girl probably accidentally fell asleep there during the previous day as her wide brimmed pink hat was covering her face and she was still fully dressed. In fact she was dressed entirely in pink, the same pink the clouds would turn at sunrise, though none of it was very fancy in any way: a plain short sleeved pink shirt, a pair of pink shorts pink socks pink shoes with pink laces, and what appeared to be a pink backpack flattening a patch of grass less than a meter away from her.

Maybe that wouldn't have been a bad look for her if it wasn't for her long black hair scattered through the grass around her head, and the pink being darker than her own skin colour. Such a bad fashion sense could not have developed unless one actually didn't care what was thought about their appearance, or at least were made to not care.

The ninetales lifted one paw like she was just taking another step, though she watched it very careful as she put it down on the girl's neck before adding a bit of pressure. Almost joyfully she watched as the girl as the girl awoke in panic, the girl being barely able to breath at all and certainly unable to scream for help, she watched as the girl tried to bat the paw off with clawless hands, she watched as the girl came slowly closer and closer to passing out due to lack of oxygen.

"You really should relax a bit," the ninetales sneered, as she slowly lay down, careful so as to not to release the pressure on the girls neck or add too much extra pressure, putting her other paw on the girl's chest, "currently I have no reason to kill you quickly and I'm sure you have nothing to lose if you conserve your energy to survive a few more seconds…" she paused before continuing with a spine-tingling growl, far more menacing than one would expect from a ninetales, "oh I forgot, you humans can't understand Pokemon at all… still I do feel it is required for me to tell you why I'm doing this before you lose any chance of hearing this at all."

"I was sent after you by my good friend N'med though she was quite reluctant to do so, as my methods aren't exactly desirable most of the time," she continued, now clearly trying to sound nicer than she really was, "I am to remove you from the grasp of some sort of evil, the kind that N'med is always going on about, apparently you're meant to become some great and powerful minion of darkness. I of course would never buy into that rubbish. I'm here to pay back a debt to N'med and to have a little fun."

"If only it was that simple…" she sighed, as the girl's arms fell limp, "N'med want a peaceful solution, but I was the only one she believes is capable of dealing with you without being caught. She just believes I hate humans for the destruction they have caused… true I have killed many of your kind to try to get the message across to stop their destructive ways, but it never seems to have any effect so killing you wouldn't either…" she lifted her paw before moving her other paw up the girl's chest a bit to find that there was still a heartbeat and some weak breathing.

"…I suppose I might have to try something else to make things change, in fact I think you can help me do so," she said carefully, as she seemed to be suddenly deep in thought, "human communities are a lot bigger than pokemon ones, in fact if I am right it seems all human communities seem to be connected somehow, so a single human could end up having greatly influence over all other humans… Maybe I could make sure you get into such a position of power, of course it would take many years to do so. It won't be possible if you remain in a position where N'med would know if you still lived or, if N'med is right, dark powers could find you. Of course, if you cannot understand me then there will be no reason for me to do so."

"Not that a lack of understanding can't be bridged. I can sense that your mind has already been weakened by psychic manipulation, which will make it easy to manipulate you further. Though I cannot be sure of the source, it seems ongoing and seems to be focused on reducing stress," her growl was almost like a laugh, "of course my kind do not find direct manipulation of the mind easy, it is curses cast when our tails are grabbed that we excel at. Curses are restricted somewhat and the results are most often unpredictable as it works as a spur of the moment, planning a curse ahead of time just isn't done often, being that it doesn't always work as planned. You have nothing to fear, as I know this will work perfectly."

She flicked one of her tails gently down into the girl's hand. The fox's eye's closed, and her fur glowed a pale blue. Where one of her tail's touched the girl's there was a spark of light, and the girl's hand twitched as if shocked by a small amount of electricity. The Ninetales leapt away from the girl, giving out a yelp of pain as if her tail had been pulled. The curse was complete.

"Be thankful, I could have made you completely under my power but instead I just curse you with understanding all pokemon," she growled viciously, as glared at the unconscious human, "it'll be more fun to gain your loyalty through other means, and your weak mind will make it easy to convince you to leave this place but that probably will wear off over time. By then you will be completely loyal. Lucky for you I have time to calm down before you awaken to your new 'cursed' power. I'm sure in any other circumstances it'd be a gift not a curse, perhaps you won't even notice the disadvantages for quite sometime."

Sunrise had barely passed long enough ago for the clouds to have turned to their usual daytime white, and the girl began to awaken again, this time from true unconsciousness instead of sleep.

"So you're finally awake," The ninetales said excitedly, prodding the girl's shoulder to try and hasten the process of waking up, "okay we've never met before but you may call me Kitsune"

The girl reached to move her hat off her face, placing it down beside her to reveal her sparkling emerald green eyes, "Good morning," she yawned, not quite awake, upon letting go of her hat she moved her hand to feel her own neck as if making sure there was no damage, "I just had a very odd dream, I couldn't breath and there was this ninetales…"

She suddenly bolted upright, "How come I can understand you?" she asked hurriedly, "I can tell that your still talking like a normal ninetales, yet I understand what your saying clearly… in fact in the dream I had I could almost understand what was being said to. Wait a moment, I know for a fact there shouldn't be a ninetales in this valley at all, I think you have a lot to expla…" the girl stopped mid-sentence, and she began to tremble a bit as she realized that she was defenseless if the ninetales decided to attack.

"I guess I might as well explain things," Kitsune said, doing her best to hide the pleasure she was having from getting such reaction, though she could do nothing about all nine of her tails wagging, "you were having a bad dream when I found you, I didn't want to wake you at that time as that may of made things worse, I just tried to talk to you during it which should help explain what you heard in your dream. As for you understanding me, consider it a gift and I hope we can become friends, by the way I don't believe you have told me your name yet."

"Lilac Blossom All-Weather," the girl said, her confidence seemed to be returning quickly but fear was still in her voice as she sat motionlessly on the grass watching Kitsune carefully, "I suppose you will be wanting me to go with you out of this valley since there is no way that you'd get away with staying here. I have my pack packed as I am often required to spend time at far reaches of the valley to make sure everything remains safe here, so no one will notice if I don't do that anymore, they never notice anything I do…"

"I have a reasonable idea where I desire to take you," Kitsune said after a brief silence because of how much easier things seemed to be going than she expected, though it was an omen that the girl showed by suggesting what had to be done without any need of convincing…


	2. An everyday peaceful sea voyage

**Chapter 2: An everyday peaceful sea voyage**

_(From the perspective of the Ninetales, Kitsune)_

It had been over an hour since we left the valley, altered her mind so she could understand pokemon, and Lilac had last said anything to anyone, let alone me. Talking to her might scare her, and if I scare her too much I would risk losing my chance to use her later on, so I had to stay silent and not let myself lose this chance to set humanity on the right path.

I watched as Lilac push some of what I assume was money across to some other human as an offering for us to travel on their large sea vessel, it would be a bad time to try to talk to her so I just tried to act like a loyal pokemon following her master, my mind refused to remember what I was going through, it was better that way or else I would certainly go insane. Knowing that we would soon get to Hoenn, which apparently was the birthplace of N'med, was all I needed to give me hope of enjoyment later.

A moment in time is meant to be short, but the moments are meant to add up to make a period of time noticeable. But the way I drifted through thoughts without paying attention to what they were had made my whole time with Lilac seem like only a few seconds. It was not like the thoughts were unimportant, it was just that wandering through human territory without conflict was a bit unnerving; I always knew I deliberately caused the conflicts myself but deep down inside I never really believed such things were my fault till now.

"Kitsune, you've been too quite lately," Lilac sighed, snapping me out of my thoughts. We were now on some flat white-painted metal surface on top of the vessel; Lilac was leaning on the railing looking out at the shimmering ocean, "I know something is bothering you, I may not know you very well but your body language is all too clear: all nine of your tails have been dragging on the ground for quite some time; you ears were also flattened against your head, and you seemed to not be paying attention to anything that was happening around you. Look, I know that you feel hopeless for some reason, I just don't like seeing others like that."

"Even though you hated seeing me like that you still took so long to try to help…" I growled softly preparing to lunge at her, and Lilac turned to look at me, tears were running down her cheeks even though her full sadness hadn't shown in her voice. Tears couldn't have had any effect on me, could they? "I don't blame you, I know you are a bit scared of me and I don't blame you for that either… You are helpless if I attack, I do not have a pokeball you can just put me in and there is no one else around to defend you… I am the one at fault; I let my problems overcome me because I just didn't want to frighten you."

"I know you are deliberately not saying everything, but I know you are doing so to be nice," Lilac said, wiping the tears from her eyes and I could barely notice that she was trembling but I could clearly smell her fear of me because of what I had said, "It's just that I know you enjoyed seeing me scared, I could see it when we met. I know no one could change so quickly… it is nice to know you will try to change, but mentally isolating yourself from everyone around you isn't going to help…"

She cautiously moved closer to me, beginning to extend her arms as if to hug me. She kneeled down more than needed to put her arms around my neck. I know she only wanted to hug me to make me more comfortable but I could smell her fear, and she was trembling slightly. But she was right, I should just be myself, at least I assume that was what she was trying to say. But she was making herself an easy target; it would have been quite hard to resist if I actually wanted to stop myself.

I leapt at her, though it was hardly worth calling a leap because of how little distance was involved, my front paws landing on her shoulders pushing her over though I made sure that they quickly slipped off so I didn't risk crushing her shoulders when she hit the ground. She hit the ground with a slight thump, my paws landing just above her shoulders making me in a position where I could watch her very well.

I could have quickly moved backwards and pinned her to the ground with ease but toying with her for a while would be a lot more fun. I could feel that all nine of my tails were wagging viciously, at least Lilac could take comfort in the fact she had cheered me up all ready even though I doubt she had any concern for my emotional well being at the moment.

I felt her head move up from between my front paws, allowing her to quickly roll out from under me, her fear must of been clouding her judgment otherwise she would of noticed that I was not reacting as fast as I could have.

She rolled out from under me, clearly intending to be back on her feet as quickly as possible as it showed in her roll, and instead of turning straight to her to attack I spun round the other way whacking her with my tails. I heard her hit the ground before I finished turn round so naturally I jumped into the air with full confidence she would just roll out of the way…

She didn't, something seemed to catch her eye that was more important than I was. I barely managed to stop my front paws impacting on to her, with the full weight of my body behind them, and they hit the metal surface just on the other side of her with a thud and the paint cracked a bit as the metal underneath was dented slightly. Playing with my new toy Lilac was certainly not important enough for me to not pay attention to the fact something distracted her; I merely slowed down the decent of the rest of my body when my back legs reached the ground and I gently lay my head between my front paws, with the rest of both my front legs stretched across her chest.

"Look what we have here," an unfamiliar female human voice said, clearly originating from whomever distracted Lilac, "a pathetic trainer playing with their pokemon…it's really a horrible sight, pokemon are not meant to be one's friend, they are meant only for battling against each other. Playing with them is more of a waste of time than teaching to do tricks for contest halls."

I looked towards the human, she was about the same height as Lilac though she did sound older, her hair was a pale cream colour much like members of my species are meant to have and it stretched halfway down her back. Her eyes were yellow, which surprised me. I had seen yellow eyes before, but I had never seen them on a human.

Her clothing was all made of a light blue fabric, probably a form of silk, though I couldn't really be sure. She wore a dress long enough to touch the ground and seemed to be part of the same piece of clothing as her shirt whose arms covered her arms quite well, amazingly it didn't seem to be loose at all, I heard humans regularly change their clothing but I could not see how she could of possibly done so when it was like that. Maybe she grew too much while she wore it.

She giggled, with her hand to her mouth and her eyes closed, "That's what you would've heard if it wasn't for the fact that we are the only passengers on this ship," her voice was a bit softer than before; she must not have meant any of what she said earlier and said it only to give us a fright, "few trainers travel this time of year as most of the major tournaments are on this month are either just finished, part way through, or going to start within a few weeks. Most trainers are jealous of those who can trust there pokemon enough to play with them, really it's their own fault they can't trust their pokemon because of how mean they are to them and how they feel that only fully evolved pokemon are worth using in battles… I must say it is impressive that you are not afraid to play with such a large pokemon, you wouldn't last very long if it wanted to hurt you and it might even hurt you by accident."

"Yes, it is hard to learn to trust a powerful pokemon such as Kitsune," Lilac replied, it was clear by the way she spoke she was uncomfortable with me on her but the little fear in her voice was enough to keep me there, "but one could never hope to earn trust without giving it, so it is well worth the risk allowing a pokemon enough freedom to cause harm as that way you'll quickly know for sure… By the way my name is Lilac Blossom All-Weather."

I growled quietly so Lilac would hear but not the other girl, I had to make it clear she should imply she owned me as it was the other way round…

"Sorry I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Ingénuo Muchacha," the girl answered, she looked relieved that nothing worse happened when she didn't introduce herself right away. I felt uncomfortable with the way she was looking at me as she crouched down and tilted her head a bit, "I have heard some interesting rumours about Ninetales, maybe since you own on you could tell me if they are true, I've been told that powerful ones can use telekinetic abilities, and that if you grab one of their tails you would get a powerful curse put on you… you do know if the rumours are true, don't you?"

I shifted off Lilac, and began to circle Ingénuo… All she had ever done to annoy me so far was to show up but that was no reason for me to try to be friendly, odd how there was little pokemon scent on her, it is as if she hadn't been in contact with any pokemon for a few days meaning she couldn't have any pokemon of her own… One big advantage to me, but she seemed too calm, how could she not be panicked by how defenseless she was?

"I have never heard of either of those rumours before," Lilac said nervously, I gave her a quick glance to find that she was already back on her feet, her fear now had a different texture, uncertainty of past events was now probably a major aspect of the fear, she knew she had touched my tails but was uncertain as to whether it counted, "is there some way to check, maybe Kitsune would be happy to try levitating a small object, at least we have a chance of finding out for sure."

Lilac had produced a pocketknife and slid it across the ground so it stopped at my feet; clearly she wanted me to try to move it with my mind. I sat down, closed my eyes and focused my energy on the knife, even though this was my first time trying such an application of mental energies I could feel the position of the object in the universe, I could feel it moving under the pressure of my mind…

…Laughter. that is what I heard from Ingénuo, she was laughing hysterically at me, which was really making it hard to concentrate. I opened my eyes and before me was the knife; it had been still where it was when I had started. I really hadn't moved it at all.

A giggle came from Lilac; I couldn't see what was funny and the gaze I gave her would certainly make not only that clear but also that I wasn't very happy with it, "Look Kitsune, your fur just fluffed up when you were trying to levitate the knife, though the blue glow was a bit cool," she said, only then I realize how close she had gotten as she reached to grab one of my tails, "sorry, curiosity got the better of me, it's just so tempting to find out whether you would put a curse on me."

"You're certainly no normal trainer," Ingénuo continued, still giggling a bit, now at both me and Lilac, and most certainly it seemed quite disrespectful, "trusting a pokemon not to hurt you when playing can be considered extremely brave, but trying to grab a tail of a Ninetales is just crazy. Even if she couldn't put a curse on you, she would still hate it and she could quite easily kill you before you had a chance to return her to her pokeball."

My fur puffing out was no excuse for her laughing at me, and I certainly didn't like what she said to Lilac, even though there was no way for her to have known I still hated how she suggested that Lilac could contain me, I could feel the fire building up in my throat ready to roar out, I open my mouth and aimed it straight at her. It was merely a small puff of fire, barely reaching a meter, though my tails wagged more violent than they had been for a while when I saw stupid fall backwards in fright of the flames. It was a lot more enjoyable than watching her burn, though I did try my best to fry her anyway, all I got was a pain in my throat.

I never could breath fire properly, it always hurt, but the instincts to just burn anything that annoyed me too much remained.

"For a moment there I actually thought she was actually going use a flamethrower on me," Ingénuo said nervously, as she sat on the ground with her arms holding stopping her from completely falling over, "I can see now she is really well trained but I would still be more comfortable with her keeping her distance from me, I don't have any pokemon of my own yet but tomorrow Professor Birch is going to give me my first one and I would love to travel with you if you can keep your Ninetales under control… Lilac do you have any idea why her fur went like that?"

"Well the use of psychic powers do produce electromagnetic fields, and static electricity would make fur puff out like that… though I can't see how it works, really it should do this," Lilac said, confusion showed in her voice but also a little smugness that comes with knowing more than someone else, "all I know is that it will be impossible to channel that electrical energy that made her fur fluff up into a successful attack for two basic reasons: Her body isn't made for storing any decent amount of electric energy so it'd be far too weak to do any harm; and her body doesn't have any way to stop the energy just dispersing straight into the ground when it stops building up."

I sighed and slowly got off Lilac. This was going to be a long boat ride if we had to deal with this girl the whole way, she doesn't even give Lilac a chance to correct her mistakes, but it'll be easy to get rid of her once we are back on land…


	3. The fox’s toy…

Chapter 3: The fox's toy… 

_(From the perspective of the human, Lilac Blossom All-Weather)_

"Lilac, it looks like there are still a few hours left in the day," Ingénuo said to me as we left the small docks of LittleRoot Town, she just ignored the fact Kitsune was there, "maybe you could stay at my parent's house overnight, as I can't really leave here till I get my first Pokemon tomorrow… Well Professor Birch sometimes has to test to see if someone is good enough to be a Pokemon trainer and he always give new trainers a Pokedex, so if you stay he might even give you a Pokedex too."

I sighed, as likeable as Ingénuo was she didn't really respect others much, especially Kitsune. Maybe if she spent some time by herself with a Pokemon that she couldn't understand, it'd teach her how to be nicer. I couldn't allow myself to stay with her if it would slow down her progress to being a reasonable Pokemon trainer, and certainly she'd just talk to me all the time and forget about her Pokemon if she came with me.

Anyway, it'd just be wrong to travel with her out of selfishness of being uncomfortable alone with Kitsune. What would be best for Kitsune is hard to say, but it'd be better for me if I could become comfortable with whom Kitsune is.

"Sorry, but it would be best for Kitsune if we kept moving…" I sighed; hating to have to used Kitsune as an excuse, but I'm sure she won't mind since I don't think she likes Ingénuo much, "I need to train with her alone for a while so she gets used to me, and so I get used to her. As you've probably noticed she is a bit uncontrollable since I only got her today, maybe we could meet up somewhere, like Dewford Island, I intend to stay there for a few days anyway."

I could feel Kitsune's gaze, I could feel my skin crawl out of fear, I couldn't have upset her much even if I did imply that she belonged to me when she was still free and had no Poke ball that could instantly bind her within it's self. She was wild and there was no way she'd give up her freedom when she didn't have to, but maybe if I had another Pokemon she'd be willing to be caught as then I wouldn't need her to keep me company.

Odd how she didn't say anything, as if she didn't want to risk Ingénuo understanding what she said, or not wanting to reveal that I could understand her. A pang of guilt hit me; I shouldn't have stopped talking to her directly on the boat just because she wasn't talking and that Ingénuo thought it was stupid.

At least Kitsune should be happy that I plan to stop at the birthplace of her other friend, though I doubted that the friend was either human or a trained Pokemon, but a wild Pokemon would have trouble travelling from Hoenn, well unless they went about it the same way as Kitsune.

"Sounds good," Ingénuo muttered in distaste, her arms crossed across her chest, "usually I'd say I'd catch up sooner since you'll have a lot of sight seeing to do but there is a big storm coming in a few days… You might be able to travel to Petalburg before it hits, maybe even reaching Rustboro where you'll be able to get a boat to Dewford after the storm, but it'll be too dangerous for me to travel any further than Oldale if I start tomorrow."

"I hope you don't intend to let your Ninetales stay out of it's Poke ball, you keep on seeming more and more insane: first was you playing with it, then you tried to grab one of it's tails, now you tell me you were doing that after just meeting it for the first time… It'll be hard for me to believe you won't do such a stupid thing, luckily the worst it'll do is run away as we all know what happens to a Pokemon that attacks a human"

Well, at least now I won't have to stop for directions, the sign posts should tell me the way to each of those towns so getting to Dewford should be easy. I watched Ingénuo turn her back and walk away, so I began to head out of town and to the route north, hopefully towards Oldale, the first point on the way to Dewford.

"You know, she actually acknowledged that I could think for once," Kitsune said, clearly she was amused but it didn't show in her voice the same way that it would in a human, though her tails showed her emotions much better than her voice, they were flicking in delight, "she indicated that she believed I was smart enough not to kill you as all violent Pokemon are quickly killed, I think I could like her once she grows a bit more mature, I'm far more intelligent than she thinks, what humans do to those Pokemon who don't suit them as perfectly loyal will never pose me a problem… well if I wasn't completely loyal"

There was a tinge of humour in what she said, though I didn't laugh. Mainly what she said sounded like a threat, that she did not fear the consequences of harming me, and the next bit sounded like she intended it to comfort me as if she said the other bit by accident. Well it's not her fault, she seems young for a Ninetales, a bit immature, and she doesn't know what she's saying. If she hurt me she'd quickly realize that, she just is currently unaware that others feel pain the same way she does.

Still it was difficult to keep my mind focused away from the fear of her I felt. All my life I had never been around any Pokemon other than Eevees and their many evolutions, only knowing about others through videos and textbooks.

As I walked I did my best to blank out Kitsune from my mind. I still trembled out of nervousness because of Kitsune; she seemed to dance around me as we moved deeper into the wilderness between towns. It was as if she was feeding on my fear and was enjoying its taste a lot, not caring that she was scaring off all the other Pokemon in the area. Her behaviour was much like that of a young Umbreon, if it believes your afraid of it, the flavour of fear being impossible to resist because of special hunting instincts. It wasn't Kitsune's fault she was like this; she was clearly immature because of an early evolution so it was mine for encouraging it by being afraid.

At least time seemed to be passing fast when I was ignoring her.

The sun was almost setting when I collapsed to the ground. My backpack rolled out to my side, my legs hurt too much to of been from a normal long walk. I must have been walking a lot quicker than I should have been but we probably would have stopped earlier than this if I were thinking straight. We probably only got half the distance. There was no way we would reach Rustboro before the storm now all thanks to Kitsune's frightful behaviour.

Too bad the other features of an Umbreons hunting instinct were also in Kitsune, the whole instinct was to keep the prey scared and running till it was too weak to fight well, then attack for an easy kill.

Kitsune pounced, light gleaming off her sharp white teeth. I barely managed to roll out of the way, though I knew quite well that resisting would just encourage her. I could not resist obeying my fear, somehow I managed to summon the strength to get back on to my feet, the surprise that I dodged Kitsune's pounce clearly brought me the time to get up… almost.

She leapt again, this time I felt her jaws grab me by my throat and her paws somehow impacted on my shoulders knocking me over. I fell; I could hear the rapid beating of my heart clearly and the fall seemed to take longer than it should have, though my life did not flash before my eyes, as I knew she was only playing at the moment.

My impact on the ground was soft, too soft for such a fall. It seemed that Kitsune's paws had slipped off my shoulders and landed on the ground first, then she had carefully slowed my fall by hold my neck in her teeth. Doing such a thing would require exceptional precision; if she had tried to slow my fall too much she would have just ripped my throat out instead.

Kitsune let go of my neck but I was too tired to use that as an opportunity to escape, anyway that would probably result in her jumping on me again and I doubt that she could pull off the trick with slowing down my fall again. She laid her front paws diagonally across me holding me down so even if I had the strength to move I would still not be able to.

"I hope I didn't scare you too much," Kitsune said as she rested her head on me, clearly she had wasted a lot more energy than she was willing to admit earlier, the warmth of her body up against mine was comforting and my eyes slid shut, I wasn't trembling but that could just be out of lack of stamina. I knew that Kitsune hadn't eaten all day, yet I had at least gotten my own lunch. She must have been getting hungry, but she hadn't let that get the better of her, at least not this time.

I didn't feel up to trying to talk yet, I was getting a bit hungry, but that could wait until Kitsune lets me up.

I must have dozed off as a horrific howl awoke me. It was certainly from a pokemon, it sounded like that of a Mightyena, and likely had a meaning I could not understand. There was only the light of the stars and the crescent moon to see by. I tried not to tremble in fear, as long as Kitsune was here I would be fine.

Kitsune! The weight of her on my chest was gone. I quickly sat up and looked around, surely she must have just moved off me for some reason, probably fearing that she would accidentally hurt me while she slept.

No! There must be some mistake, a quick glance around revealed that she was no where to be seen, and no shadows nearby that looked at all like her

I was shaking, but honestly who wouldn't be; I was suddenly alone, without any protection, without enough light to see by, and there was a Mightyena around. I could feel its anger and hatred. I couldn't see how I could or why I could, but I knew somehow. The worst part was the realization that I'd always be scared. I was afraid of Kitsune, but I was even more scared of not having her around.

I could feel myself curling up into a ball, an instinctive reaction so as to make myself less threatening to any thing around. I wanted to scream for Kitsune but I couldn't. I was having trouble breathing; even Kitsune couldn't scare me like I was scared now. It was worse than the dream I had just before meeting Kitsune.

"Don't worry, I'm here now," a familiar voice whispered in the wind, Kitsune's voice, I turned to look to where the voice was coming from and there was a silhouette of the correct shape. She had returned. I didn't need to know why she had been gone; I just needed her beside me so I could let myself fall asleep once more. There was a tint of red to her fur, it seemed to be in patches, though I felt that it must just be a trick of the light, "Don't worry, everything is fine… I just need to clear up my fur a bit; it's a mess at the moment."

Quickly she was beside me again. It didn't matter that I knew Pokemon like a Ninetales usually didn't put much work into keeping their fur neat, maybe Kitsune was actually concerned about how she looked, and it didn't matter that Kitsune was being a lot more comforting than usual. Maybe she didn't like seeing me this scared.

Soon she was nuzzling her face against mine and I put my arms around her, though there was a slight dampness and her fur was a bit sticky, but it didn't matter to me. I began to drift off and Kitsune gave my face a lick, probably as an equivalent of a kiss, clearly she was going out of her way to make me accept her as a friend. I will have to wait until morning to ask her what had happened, but I'm sure she had a good reason…


	4. Something she ate?

**Chapter 4: Something she ate?**

_(From the perspective of the Ninetales, Kitsune)_

I felt the sensation of fur rubbing against my fur, a wondrous thing I had been without for so very long. It was so heartening, so soothing, it reminded me of how much I loved my parents, and how I promised that I would make sure humans would never cause pain to another like they caused me by killing my parents through their carelessness. 

Something was certainly wrong about the fur rubbing against mine. No matter how much I liked it, it wasn't meant to be happening. I knew that there was no other furred creature traveling with us. I might not have even realised this if it wasn't for the fact the fur was a bit rougher than a Ninetales'. I could tell that there wasn't any immediate danger but suddenly I was worried, not about myself but for Lilac. I could smell that she was nearby but that wasn't enough for me.

I opened my eyes to see the light glistening off dew drops in some nearby short grass. There was a group of unfamiliar brown furred Pokemon that were laying around dozing in the morning sun, and a group of unfamiliar butterfly-like Pokemon that were lazily flying around drinking nectar from some rather large flowers. It was truly what should be called a beautiful, peaceful day, but I felt a bit light headed and in need of a bit more sleep.

No, I had to get up; there was something odd about this whole day so far.

I suddenly felt like standing up would be a bad idea, because somewhere deep in my mind was telling me that I would quickly regret standing up. It wouldn't tell me why though. Since sudden instincts like that usually are right, I had to have another glance at my surroundings first, just to see if I could figure out what had given me that feeling. It could not be reacting to a sense I did not have. Hopefully I would soon be able to discount it as just tiredness.

I looked carefully at one of the nearby sleeping creatures, it had thick cream vertical stripes on it's brown fur, it's front legs were in one of those stripes making them cream coloured, and a black band of fur went across it's eyes. It's legs did look a bit short though I was almost certain that was only an illusion caused by the long fur but I could not see why it would need thick fur to begin with.

The fur rubbing against mine must have been another one of those creatures!

I leapt to my feet in shock, instantly hearing the cries of those whom were waking up beside me due to my abrupt stand.

Then I knew what my instincts were trying to tell me, there wasn't an external reason, and I could feel the partially digested meal from last night come up my throat. I spewed it all up over the grass in front of me. Luckily the creatures around me didn't get hit. It was clearly beyond boiling and the grass directly around it wilted before catching on fire.

"Kitsune!" the familiar, yet very panicked, voice of Lilac called out. Clearly I was wrong to worry about her this time, "are you alright? I should have noticed something was wrong when you woke up earlier and didn't seem hungry after not eating for a whole day… I just was more interested in these Zigzagoon. Apparently last night you saved one of them which explains why you were gone for a while."

I felt Lilac's arms go around my neck. I could tell that tears were running down her cheeks without even looking. I felt weak and probably was doing a very poor job of hiding it from her as I was having trouble staying on my feet.

The memories of the pervious night came flowing back to me…

I had gone out hunting, as I hadn't eaten in days. In fact the hunger almost made me hurt Lilac. It had certainly made me unable to resist playing with her without becoming distant in thought, though Lilac clearly was unable to see that hunger as I'm good at hiding such discomfort even from myself. I remember being unable to smell the scents of any familiar Pokemon species in the area, especially not any of suitable prey except that of the occasional human that had past through the area. I just picked up a random scent and followed it, as I knew if I just waited around my hunger would force me to feed on Lilac's flesh.

I ended up at a den site containing some small black dog-like Pokemon. My instincts cried out that it was wrong to eat them for some reason, like they always  
did when I thought of eating things like Eevees or Growliths. That would have been enough to stop me, but I was so confused by all the unfamiliar scents that I thought that it would be the best I could find.

By the time their mother, a larger black dog-like Pokemon, found me, all her pups were long dead and I was just starting to burry the leftover remains. I don't blame her for being upset, she had in her mouth an injured Zigzagoon and since it was still alive I can assume that she was teaching them how to kill.

She was surprised enough to give me an opportunity to attack first. It was a quick fight. The mother got away with injuries that would slowly kill her and I still wonder whether the howl she let out while she ran had a meaning I couldn't pick up or was just distorted from blood loss.

There must be a better reason why I feel ill, though it was not one I could figure out with the information I currently had and recovering from it was currently far more important.

At least the Zigzagoon had a good reason for being around, they were certainly intelligent enough to realise that a creature that seriously injures one of those who prey upon them is good to hang out with. If they had known the true circumstances then maybe they wouldn't be so calm around me.

"Quick get some water, hopefully it's not too late to dilute whatever toxins is making Kitsune ill," Lilac called out to the Zigzagoon, and amazingly enough they barely hesitated for a moment even though they were being ordered by a human to bring water to a fire type Pokemon, "look Kitsune, water may be dangerous for a fire Pokemon but it will slow down the progression of whatever ails you so we can get to the Pokemon Centre for proper treatment. I'm sure it won't cause any serious damage."

I watched all but one of the Zigzagoon run off. The one remaining showed signs of injury, most likely the same one whom I saved from being dinner and also likely the one who gathered the rest of them around me… yes, they were probably a lot quieter than they would be but earlier they were probably being quiet so as to not wake me and now they were probably to busy to talk because of me.

"Now tell me how you know what your doing and why the Zigzagoon are willing to do what you say," I replied feebly, I could feel myself getting weaker but relying on a human would still be risky, "Even though I'm a powerful Ninetales you can't expect water to have no negative effect on me. Unlike for most others water doesn't hurt me as much but still drinking water has some uncomfortable effects. Last time I did such a thing it caused me to have diarrhea and made me… um… mark my territory a lot more than usual."

"Well that's just your system being washed out by it, which is what I'm hoping for to remove the toxins," she said seeming a lot more confident, "most Pokemon filter toxins they can't neutralise out of their systems with their kidneys in a process that requires water. Even some fire Pokemon stick to the same method, though they have developed it to be faster and require a lot less water, thus reducing the amount of water in their bodies and how long it stays there, which in turn reduces the risks and the energy used to keep the water a liquid at their high body temperatures."

"Also since you claim to not be effected by water much it probably means you were exposed to water at a very young age, so you were able to adapt to it," she continued, "sure such a thing would have ruined your ability to breath fire, but it also greatly reduces the other risks of drinking water which usually could be quite fatal for a fire Pokemon. Of course those fire Pokemon that can't cleanse their body of toxins with their kidneys usually fall ill and die if they are forced to adapt to water as their toxin removal system relies on a almost constant external flame which is disrupted by the adaptation."

One thing that could be said for the Zigzagoons was that they were fast, already they had returned with water in some rather large leaves though where they got such leaves was a little unclear.

I began to drink the water offered to me. Though Lilac couldn't have known about it I probably was only poisoned last night, so it was quite likely that very little of it had been absorbed into my body. The effects were already bad and if it were allowed to be fully absorbed things would probably get much worse.

I'd have to suffer the effects of the water. The effects couldn't be too bad compared to the alternative since there couldn't be much else left in my body to wash out.

I drunk all the water I could manage; once I had drunken all the water off one leaf the Zigzagoon put another one in front of me. The water was colder than I expected and caused a burning sensation in my stomach.

"Look we better get moving. If you let the water settle in your belly it'll do more harm than good," Lilac giggled, as she put her arms behind her head and started walking away from me, "I know I'll probably be given a big lecture at the Pokemon Centre if I say what happened so it'd be best if you try to get as much of that water out of your system before we get there."

She turned to look towards me though her gaze fell on the Zigzagoon, "You lot should really stay here. Kitsune is already a bit too much for me to handle and if I end up looking too incompetent at caring for Pokemon I'll never be allowed to be responsible for one again."

After numerous incidences caused by the water leaving my system, we finally reached Oldale Town.

I could clearly see that it was hardly a true town, I may know little about human society but when a place looks like it was built around a Pokemon Centre it is certain to lack the environmental impact that I would usually expect from any other human settlement. When we got closer I could smell that the air was still clean, confirming this was the rare type of human settlement that I didn't consider offensive and in need of removal.

We both went straight to the Pokemon Centre and entered it through the self-opening doors that squeaked quietly. It wasn't that impressive, there were a few other humans around but none stood out very much except one female who was sitting down dressed in a black hooded cloak that hid all her features from view and all that made her stand out was that I had a strange feeling about her.

"Your Pokemon are in perfect health," another female human called as she appeared from through a doorway, presumably for some back room, carrying two red and white balls. Poke balls, the devices that could convert a Pokemon into energy and trap it within the tiny ball.

The female I saw earlier got up and walked to grab the balls before heading towards the door we had just come in through.

Over the noise of the humans talking I caught the sound of a human device talking in a female human voice: "…We have more information on the massacre of a dozen Team Aqua and Team Magma members on Route 103. The police force have found evidence that it was not as we all first feared, it was not caused by the two gangs declaring war on each other again but instead caused by one person. Judging from the lack of any more evidence, this person was an expert assassin though we have no idea of the motive behind these killings…"

After listening to that, we had passed the cloaked lady and she was halfway to the door when I heard her mutter, "Damn police, they always get in the way of me reigniting old conflicts," of course her voice was far too quiet for any human to have heard it.

"Lilac, I think that lady is someone we should avoid," I growled quietly, "She had something to do with the murders."

"So she's the one who killed those gang members," Lilac whispered, fear tainted her voice; "I just hope we can tell someone without her finding out."

A chill ran down my spine, like something had suddenly gone horribly wrong, like the lady heard what Lilac had said. I glanced behind me and the lady had vanished, there had been no squeak of the door opening and the air was suddenly filled with a powerful vanilla scent. Clearly something to make it impossible to track someone.

"Hi, I assume your Nurse Joy of Oldale town," Lilac asked the lady from the back room nervously, probably fearing what would happen if the lady found out that she let me fall ill, "I'm Lilac and this is Kitsune," She gestured with her hands towards me, "I would like for her to have a full check up."

I could see the look on the Nurse's face. I had heard that while keeping small Pokemon out of poke balls was fine, a large one was a whole different story. But it was something she would never point out.

She gestured for me to follow her into the back room and I started to follow but I quickly turned around when I realised Lilac wasn't following us and grabbed her hand in my mouth and pulled her after me. I must have pieced her skin because the delicious taste of blood filled my mouth.

"Sorry it seems Kitsune is a little shy and stubborn," Lilac giggled, indicating silently that I should go without her because that was how it was done. She hid the pain of her injured hand quite well for a human.

Of course I had no intention of leaving her alone with the possibility that we had made a mysterious enemy in the last few minutes and… well… the prospect of being examined by a human wasn't very high on my list of things I would be happy to do. Maybe being stubborn by trying to drag Lilac with me would make it impossible for the examination to take place.


	5. Clinging to Dominance!

**Chapter 5: Clinging to Dominance!**

_(From the perspective of the Ninetales, Kitsune)_

"Your Ninetales bit you!" Nurse Joy exclaimed, she was clearly trying her best not to freak out at the thought that I was going to be a problem, "I think you should come in with her so I can give you proper treatment for you injury, it should calm her down a bit… I can guess that this is her first visit to a Pokemon Centre, but still it is odd for her to be acting like that, it's almost as if she feels dominant over you."

I slowly let go of Lilac's hand and licked the wound while glaring at the human; Lilac wanted me to walk straight into the unknown alone, something she had no right to ask from me. Well now she'd have to come with me. That was comforting, but not quite a victory. But it was close enough.

I was having trouble giving a menacing glare. The relief I felt was causing my tails to wag and I couldn't put any feeling into the look. The resulting glare was probably having the opposite effect than I desired.

"Come on Kitsune," Lilac giggled as she pulled her injured hand away from me and headed slowly towards the door of mysterious core of the Pokemon Centre, I watched as a single drop of blood feel from her hand and on to the floor, "I think you'll want this over and done with as quick as possible, since there is no way you're going to get out of this."

Through the doorway we all went, a Chansey came with us. I had completely ignored it until now, in fact I hadn't really noticed it at all as I dismissed it as just another Pokemon enslaved by humans, but now it was clear it was a major part of the establishment. At least it was certain she would know what she was doing when checking to see how healthy I was, but that was only a small comfort as the human named Nurse Joy was still nearby watching.

"Can you fix up my friend's hand?" I asked the Chansey, growling slightly as I kept my eyes on Nurse Joy, "your human seems a bit worried about it, then there's the fact that apparently I need to have a medical check up even though I feel fine."

"I actually thought you'd be a bit of a problem," The Chansey replied in a soothing soft voice, clearly not intending any insult, as she rushed over and started to bandage up Lilac's injury, however I was surprised that Nurse Joy was not coming closer to try to help, "I can tell you're a lot more comfortable with me than my master, really for this sort of check up she isn't needed if you cooperate and there is nothing wrong with you."

It was almost too quickly that she finished bandaging Lilac's hand and had somehow coaxed me on to some sort of table and had begun to rush around me, poking and prodding, checking for anything out of the ordinary.

I watched carefully as Nurse Joy pulled Lilac away from me to talk to her, I couldn't hear what they were saying over the soothing humming of the Chansey but I couldn't complain as it would risk seriously insulting nature's best healers, and news of that could easily spread a bit too far.

"Can you please relax a bit? Your muscles are far too tense. It's as if you're preparing to attack, it's making me a bit uncomfortable," the Chansey sighed, and started to stare at my eyes, but not into them, though she quickly moved on to prying open my mouth. I only resisted for a few seconds, as there wasn't really any point. She took a long look in my mouth, seeming to examine every tooth as well as taking a decent look down my throat. It was then she took a step back and braced herself for singing a mystical song of sleep.

I quickly focused on making fire roll out of my mouth at the Chansey, more to scare it than to do any harm as even on a good day my flames could never burn at a distance, though the effect was nothing like I expected. A burst of steam rolled round my face, clouding my sight. It was clearly a shocking result for the Chansey as she didn't start to sing, of course I was surprised enough that I didn't manage to speak before she did.

"I was hoping you would cooperate fully," she said, it sounded as though she was unsure of what to do next, "there is an important part of the examination that would be somewhat uncomfortable for you if you remained awake. If you were a smaller Pokemon I'd give you a chance to decide if you wanted to stay awake during it but seeing as how I wouldn't be able to hold you still if you get squeamish I can't do that."

"Look, you are not going to be touching my tails," I growled as the steam slowly stopped blocking my vision, and I saw that Lilac and Nurse Joy had rushed over, Lilac looked like she was about to burst out laughing, "they are far to important to let anyone else handle, even a creature like yourself, so just skip that part of my examination," the look on the Chansey's face was of total disbelief, as if she wasn't referring to handling my tails. But what else could she possibly be talking about that could be uncomfortable for me? Then again why would she need to examine at my tails anyway?

"You weren't kidding when you said she had trouble breathing fire," Nurse Joy laughed, as she carried a bowl with little round balls that smelled quite edible to me, "really it isn't too much of a health problem, it won't be able to get any worse but we don't have the equipment here to treat it, that you'll have to go to Rustboro for." She carefully placed the tray in front of me, keeping as far away from me as possible while doing so.

I nudged the bowl towards the Chansey with my nose, "Why don't you have some too?" I failed to hide that I wasn't doing it out of kindness, but I was sure that it was clear why I was suspicious of the food.

"Sorry, that stuff contains meat so can't eat it," the Chansey replied nervously, hopeful realizing that I had caught on to Nurse Joy's little trick, it was a nice feeling watching that look appear on both their faces as Nurse Joy quickly realized as well. Still, it was a waste of food.

"How do you expect Kitsune to eat something that your Chansey won't touch?" Lilac giggled as she asked the rhetorical question and grabbed one piece of the food, tossing it into her mouth. I could see the look of disbelief on the faces of the other two; it was a surprise to me as well so I could only watch as she grabbed a second piece to eat.

Food just sitting in front of me and I was letting Lilac have her share before me, what was I thinking, why was I showing such weakness?

I pushed Lilac's hand out of the way as she reached for a third piece, swallowing as much as it as I could in a single mouth full. It was quite nice; the flavour was incredible though the texture left a little to be desired, it was still far beyond what I expected from humans.

"See? You have to be ready to try what ever you feed a Pokemon to prove that it's safe," Lilac yawned, though there was no way she could be still tired, could there? I continued to eat more of the food, keeping my eyes on everyone else to make sure they didn't try anything, "you see eating a small amount of drugged food would have a severely reduced effect and the Pokemon would suffer any of the effects… I think what ever you mixed in the food is a bit stronger than what I usual give Eevee…"

As Lilac started to drop to the floor I managed to position myself to break her fall. The food had been drugged and one glance at the bowl revealed that I had eaten almost half of it. I had eaten too much to resist its effects. As she hit me I started to collapse, my vision blurred, and the air was suddenly feeling quite heavy on me.  
The last thing I heard before passing out was Nurse Joy's worried voice, "For a moment there I though we'd have to use the tranquillizer gun…"

I opened my eyes; my body felt a bit weak but only in the same way one expects to feel after awaking from an induced sleep, though I quickly realised that my jaws were shut on the edge of the bowl, something that made me spring to my unsteady feet…

"You certainly woke up quickly," the Chansey said, and I spun around to look at her. She was on the other side of another bench, Lilac was lying inert on top of it, "we would have taken the remainder of the food off you but you wouldn't let go of it, so my master decided that she'd let you keep it and what's left of the food. Since there are plenty of other things she needs to do she left me to sort things out here. Your master will soon wake and I'm just here to make sure she understands what happened."

"Interesting that all your muscles are a little large and far denser than any other Ninetales that has ever been examined," she continued as I recovered from the after effects of the food, "the muscles in your tails are especially strong," she giggled as I turned to inspect my tails, though I couldn't see a single bit of fur out of place "my master has absolute confidence that your master knows what she's doing and will take good care of you, but she is concerned about whether Lilac can manage to gain any control in her relationship with you."

I walked over to Lilac, making sure to growl quietly at the Chansey on the way over in an attempt to hide that I was still a little unsteady on my feet, "I suggest you bring me some food while we wait for Lilac to wake, I doubt you'd want to be in the same room as me when I'm hungry… and yes I do expect you to be willing to eat some to make sure it's safe."

"I thought you'd be hungry since you did stay awake long enough to finish what was put in your bowl and now you know not to eat any more of it," she laughed deviously, as she lifted a bowl of food into sight and walk round Lilac to me, "I'll be happy to share my meal with you, my master makes sure I can have access to my own food whenever I want so I'm always in top condition to deal with whatever problem comes my way."

She slid the bowl across the floor to me, its contents did not smell very nice, it smelled far too fruity for my liking… I waited for the Chansey to have a few pieces of the food first before I started to eat, the food was quite bitter yet my nearly empty stomach forced me to eat all that was given to me.

"I'm sorry for tricking you Kitsune," Lilac's voice made me turn my head to look at her, it wasn't possible that she had only just woken up though looking back at the now empty bowl in front of me suggested that I had just been too busy to notice her waking up, "but there could have been serous trouble if you didn't get a full examination… Well we really should be going"

I leapt to pick up the half full bowl of drugged food, though I stopped as it would be quicker to explain myself before she asked, "Look I've been told that the food is still mine and I'm sure there must be some way to remove the side effects it has, it's too good to just leave behind… even if we can't fix the problem with it, we can still use it to fix whatever sleeping difficulties we might have."

It felt like I was submitting to Lilac, like I was saying I was weak. I just had to have that food. I would have to think how to use it later. I picked the bowl up in my mouth and started to nudge Lilac towards the door even though she was already heading that way.

Suddenly the Chansey rushed to a nearby bench, picking up a piece of paper before running back over to hand it to Lilac.

"Here's a note written by my master," she said, as if it was required that she said at least something when handing it over, and then she had just decide to state a simple fact, "it really proves humans are quite stupid when it comes to languages, since Pokemon can understand them and yet they can't understand us, so I'm forced to just hand over a note instead of explaining things myself."

"Hey I consider that I bit insulting," Lilac replied, the annoyance in her voice quickly faded, as she grabbed the piece of paper without looking at it "… um… okay humans just have trouble understanding Pokemon… um… well…"

I started to push Lilac towards the door, recognizing the silence from the Chansey would soon turn into a lot of questions. As we exited through the door I heard the Chansey's voice, weak from shock "Did she just understand me?"

It was a quiet walk, probably because I couldn't talk at all with the bowl in my mouth, and Lilac seemed to realize I wanted to spend as little time in the town as possible and soon we were far away from it heading west. Lilac didn't seem to be traveling at a pace that was comfortable for her, though I could tell that she was only doing it to keep me happy…

"We better stop here," Lilac said all of a sudden, it was only then I noticed that the sun was close to setting, of course I place my bowl down as an indication I agreed "We'll have dinner and then spend the night here, I'm sure you have no objections to that."

She swung her backpack off her shoulders and placed it on the ground a short distance from me and pulled out a container from within it. Upon its opening I could smell that the food within it would be quite nice.

"Now you have a little problem, don't you," Lilac giggled, as she put the container in front of me, before continuing her annoying little joke without any sign of fear, "will you let me have the first share to prove it's safe to eat, thus admitting that I am at the top of the hierarchy, or will you take the risk and eat first. It's not that difficult a decision."

Enough was enough, how would I ever gain the control I needed over humanity through the long-term manipulation of her if I ended up nothing more than a mere slave to her. She belongs to me, not the other way around and that was something she had to learn.  
I charged at her, ripping the container of food from her hands and head butting her to the ground, then I dropped on her. It end with my legs going across her body, holding her still, then it was safe for me to let go of the container.

"You do have a point," I admitted, barely able to hold back the laughter of how she actually tried to trick me, "but if I fall asleep while on top of you then you'll be stuck there till I wake up, at which stage I wouldn't be too happy with you. Now what could you possible gain from this situation by lying?"

Still that would only sort out future problems, getting back at her for what she had already done would also be required…

"Look, the foods safe," Lilac's trembling was restricted by my weight on her, I had certainly scared her and she was having a little trouble breathing, "I was just joking, you must understand that as you seem to joke around quite a lot when playing with me. I hate being afraid of you, it isn't a way to live and it'll eventually throw us both into depression. I can tell it hurts you to see me scared, though your instincts just numb the pain."

She had a point, if she was always afraid she'd be of little use to me, we needed either some way to make her loyal to me out of something other than fear or someone else to join up with us to calm her down.

There was the sound of something falling over on to the ground behind me, I turned my head to see a large black dog laying unconscious next to the bowl that I took from the Pokemon Centre. It was reasonably clear what had happened, though I would have to make it suffer for eating some of my food, it was just what I needed…

"Lilac, do you think you could throw a Poke Ball at that Pokemon over there," I said as I slowly lifted myself off her so she could move, "I think you'd be more comfortable with someone else around, and it's already weak enough to capture."

"Um… look, it is unfair to catch a Pokemon using drugged food, and Mightyena only obey experienced trainers," Lilac said, almost as confused as she was scared, I could understand why she saw it odd for a Pokemon to want another one trapped within a Poke Ball, "anyway if I had Poke Balls I would of caught one of those Zigzagoon when I had the chance and… um… I was making such a good impression on Nurse Joy that I couldn't risk ruining it by asking to buy Poke Balls from her, and with you around I could walk off to buy them from a store."

Okay time for plan B; get revenge on Lilac for humiliating me.

"Okay, well we can't leave it like that," I said, hoping Lilac would agree with what I was saying, "I suggest we let it sleep with us tonight and deal with it in the morning if it hasn't already woken up and left. Do you see any reason why we shouldn't?"

Lilac merely nodded at the idea, though she made sure to keep me between her and the Mightyena. I could tell she held no fear of it as her eyes were focused on me; she was merely doing it to try to make me feel superior, though it was neither helped or was necessary.

I said nothing more, she'd probably freak out if I told her what I intended. First I'd have to have one paw on its throat all night so if it started to wake up I could add a little pressure to reduce its oxygen supply temporarily so it'd fall unconscious again. Then in the morning I'd let it wake and leave Lilac to deal with it for a while, since it'd have suffered partial suffocation several times during the night it'd pose little danger but still scare her quite a bit. Tomorrow was going to be fun, but I still hadn't had dinner so it wasn't quite time to sleep.


	6. The omega dog, no threat at all?

**Chapter 6:** The omega dog, no threat at all?

_(From the perspective of the Ninetales, Kitsune)_

The light of dawn crept over to me; I could feel the coldness of the night fade away as my mind was clear. I had spent the night in a meditative state so as to still be aware enough to sense any movement the Mightyena would make, though it was unnecessary, as he didn't even stir once. I had assumed that he would have been nocturnal, it was an easy assumption to make, but he would not have slept so soundly unless he had been awake all of the previous day, if not longer.

It should still be easy to work this situation to my advantage; in fact the only problem is that he'd be awake enough to do Lilac some serous harm if I don't intervene, but as long as he isn't any stronger than the pervious one I fought I wouldn't even get a scratch. It might even give Lilac a bigger fright than if I did him permanent trouble by depriving him of air.

I stretched and took a few steps away from the Mightyena, his disgusting scent had rubbed off on me over night but it was nothing that couldn't be quickly burned out. With my head close to my fur, I opened my mouth to let out cleansing fire. I yelped in surprise at the puff of steam that I got instead of fire, which was far more embarrassing than the lack of flames.

How could I have been stupid enough not to realize I wouldn't even be able to breath fire to clean myself? The weakened flame I used to have was enough to clean my fur if given enough time, but now I didn't even have that. How can I put up with my fur gathering the scents of others that would in time over power my own natural scent?

It's hard to believe most lesser creatures put up with such things, but for one as superior as myself having to is just unthinkable…

"It's odd that you're still breathing steam," Lilac called out, startling me once again. Two nights with her and she's woken up first both times, though nether really counted because of illness the first night and meditation the second, it was still discomforting, "I guess your inner flame is hard to put out, though it is still unlikely that you'll be able to breath fire for a long time… Well breakfast is ready, if you're still hungry after the amount you ate last night."

"Wait… you mean that not only will I get a meal every day, but you'll provide more than one!" the third shocking thing today, meaning I'd appreciate my revenge on Lilac a little bit more, "I'm not hungry, you really should have told me last night that there'd be more in the morning. Of course the Mightyena is probably starving after being knocked out last night, since you seem to know more about the Pokemon in Hoenn you better be the one to deal with it."

"Um… I don't think that'd be such a good idea," Lilac said, as she inched away, "I've heard all about Mightyenas, they are highly valued, mainly in criminal groups, not for their power but for the difficulty involved in having any control over them… those that can't handle them get mauled. Supposedly they are given to new members of Team Magma and Aqua to test or build up their skill, which is cruel for both the Pokemon and human… If you look at this properly, I can't even control you and Ninetales are meant to be very loyal, so what are the chances of me handling a wild Mightyena?"

There was a growl, and I glanced towards to Mightyena to see that it was already on his feet; now that his eyes were open I could see that they were a fiery orange with black slits; such eyes were those that I had always been jealous of, they almost made the creature look dangerous…

"You will die for what you have done," He growled as he slowly stepped forward, though his lack of confidence showed as his tail hung between his legs and his steps were cautious, "You murdered a litter of innocent cubs and left their mother to bleed to death… I shall be the one to avenge their deaths, when the sun sets I shall kill you in your sleep."

"Um… it's just after sun rise, you slept through the night and Kitsune never touched any cubs; the Mightyena was injured while Kitsune saved a Zigzagoon," Lilac said, sounding more like she was trying to reassure herself of what she believed than to convince the Mightyena, moving quickly so as to have me between her and the Mightyena, "you know it's odd to see a Mightyena without a pack. Also they're usually nocturnal but this one's most certainly diurnal since it's comfortable with the day light… it doesn't make much sense with the little information I currently have, though there is certainly a logical explanation."

"I think I understand why this one is like that then," I growled, threatening him not with physical strength but with knowing more about him than he was comfortable with, "he probably is just the lowest member in the hierarchy of his pack, resorting to getting food during the day because there isn't enough left when it gets to his turn to eat… since this was probably the only good nights sleep he's had for years it's hard to understand why he'd put up with being in a pack at all, none of my kind would put up with being anything less than absolute top of the hierarchy in a pack."

"Hey, why are you talking about me in the second person," he growled, as he almost took a step back before a wave of anger at me refreshed his confidence. "Humans can never say anything that one can understand, it is not even worth bothering to try to learn their language because it's only an illusion of one… um… your kind must have trouble forming packs if no one is at the bottom of the hierarchy."

"The lowest member of a pack is sometimes called the omega dog," Lilac said, desperate to be useful as she trembled in fear of the dark type Pokemon, a fear common in humans that had little basis at all, "also the lack of understanding helps explain their hostility when their captured, their stubbornness to adapt their beliefs must also be a factor… a social pack creature would have trouble adapting when they are commanded in a language that they have trouble understanding and the comfort of being in a pack would remain in their minds so they'd long for it again."

"At least I do know your weakness," he continued, his tail having trouble wagging while it was hung so low, "all your kind are protective of their tails, and there is also the rumour about a curse that affects all who touch one of the tails…" the pause in what he was saying would have been filled with a bit of laughter if it were from a creature that ever did such a thing, "…that doesn't fool me, I bet if I rip off one of your tails you'll become helpless."

A sudden urge rushed over me to just yell out that my tails weren't a weak spot, I knew it was the truth, my kind were just protective of their tails because, because, there was no reason that I could see, it was just another instinct that had always gotten in the way. Even if Lilac knew why, it'd be too embarrassing to ask her…

"Your speechless meaning I was right," he growled as he lunged for one of my tails.  
I could have easily knocked him to the ground and killed him there, but I hesitated and ended up just pulling my tail out of his way. I couldn't go for a quick win when the poor thing had no chance of winning at all when I intended to peacefully sort out the human problem in the future… I needed practice at doing such things, a peacefully solution to a simple thing like this would be a sign that things would certainly work out in the end.

"Pack your stuff," I called out to Lilac, my dodging of the Mightyena's attempts to bite my tails probably looked like a playful dance to her; it was hard to keep the fact that she was only a stupid human fresh in my mind when she always said things I didn't know, "we're heading off to the next town, this guy here will eventually get tired and go home… if not I'm sure there will be some pathetic trainer who'll want him to prove they have great skill, though by then he'll hardly put up a fight."

It was almost fun teasing the creature with my tails as we ran around Lilac; he seemed to be going for a long drawn out chase, as he was afraid of what would happen if he did catch me without hitting a weak spot. Lilac made sure we still progressed towards the next town at a reasonable pace for a human…

"I think I need a bit of a rest," she wheezed, looking weak from the distance we had traveled, "we'll stop for lunch and a bit of a rest, I just hope you can handle that Mightyena for that long… if you get into trouble I won't be able to help you."

I looked towards a nearby tree, a perfect place to set him down for a while. I ran towards it and he followed, snapping at my tails. I ran past the tree, waving one of tails against it, before quickly pulling it away. When I heard thump as the Mightyena ran straight into the tree, more out of being too focused on my tail to notice the tree than stupidity, I twisted round and whacked my paw down on his throat.

"Look, why can't we sort this out peacefully," I growled, adding a little pressure to make him uncomfortable but not so much that he'd blackout, "I could of easily killed you at any time but instead I tried to wait for you to get bored. Look, even if you continue to try to kill me you'll just fail time after time as you lack the strength to beat me in a fair fight and you lack the intelligence to trick me. I don't want this to come to a fight; I have no desire to harm you."

"I'm sorry about this, I should have guessed that the howl was a bit of an exaggeration," the Mightyena whimpered, "some of my kind just get a bit paranoid when they have pups and end up forcing everyone away, so she was probably a bit confused when she howled out the message about you. But that's not the problem, no one really cared about her since she had no pack and the pups were fathered be a Seviper. I still have to kill you, as I can't return back to my pack unless I do. If I tell them you didn't do anything I'd be considered a coward, backing out of something I said I'd do."

"Let me get this straight, you got tired of being the omega dog so you spurted out that you'd hunt me down," I said, easily guessing about what had happened to him, "just so you could be moved up the hierarchy… of course you should know that the only chance you have of killing me is to outsmart me; being intelligent is clearly not something your good at because you also missed the fact that even if you kill me you'll be back down to being the omega dog in a few days because your such a wimp…" suddenly the shock of something else he said hit me, "you mean your species breeds with other species? That can't work, can it?"

I turned questioningly towards Lilac, letting go of the Mightyena.

"Yes, it does happen but I don't know any more than that," she sighed, "I have gotten to see the evolved forms of Eevee breed, nothing more thus I know very little about that sort of thing… I do know that some of the more successful breeders rely on it happening to breed Pokemon with certain abilities they don't normally have. I would guess that the young Poochyena in that litter would grow venom sacs or something."

Suddenly there was the sound of hoofs on the ground and something dashed past us, stopping in the path to the next city, thus disrupting any chance of me quickly finishing off with a 'peaceful' solution with the Mightyena. The true peaceful solution had proven to be impossible, but that didn't mean it was an omen of things to come.

There stood a fiery horse, a Rapidash, only a short distance away standing side on, showing off as much of its magnificent flames as it could. It was a creature that might understand how I was suffering from being unable to burn my fur clean, a creature who might even… no, I could not ignore the lifeless look in its eyes or the black robed figure on it's back, the wind blew the scent of the rider to me, it was the same one I saw in the Pokemon centre yesterday.

"Sometimes I have to wonder why I bother spying on my targets before dealing with them," a human voice called out from under the black hood of the robe, as feminine as it was it still held far too bile and malice for the speaker to have anything nice planned for anyone for the rest of her life, "I could have easily slit your throat as you slept last night, but I mistook you for the type who would have some tricks to prevent that, but then I ended up sleeping in thus missing the chance to observe you more closely."

She sighed, her Rapidash seemed a little restless under her as if it was not used to her talking so much, or maybe for some other reason, "I almost feel sorry that I have to kill you, but you know how it is. You know something that I don't want someone else to find out about, and even though I am curious as to how you found out when you were even too stupid to make sure I didn't find out you knew, I can not take the risk of letting you live. At least it'll be a rapid death since you won't be able to put up a decent fight."

I glanced at the Mightyena, I could see that a plan had risen in his mind, the way he tried to hide the fact that he was watching Lilac carefully made it clear what he intended. I had underestimated is intelligence; however he still posed no real threat.

It was clear what he was planning as it would be similar to what I'd do in this sort of situation: In a fight I'd have to move away from Lilac, and he'd have a chance to take her hostage, luckily that'd mean he'd also have to protect her if anything got past me meaning I could fight without worrying about her.

And after the fight, if he's even got enough strength left to hold a hostage, I could always use my special technique that he will have to way to resist…

As cunning as his plan was, it would help me more than harm me and he'd be the last to know. He was truly a natural omega dog, the last at everything important in life.


	7. A Terrible Pokemon Trainer

**Chapter 7: A Terrible Pokemon Trainer**

_(From the perspective of the human, Lilac)_

I don't like the way that Mightyena is looking at me; I know he's planning something involving me that I won't like, but he'd wait till after we beat this mystery lady before trying anything, of course then Kitsune would be free to deal with what ever plan he's… who am I fooling? This lady is probably some sort of unbeatable assassin and I'm just some girl who let's herself be pushed around by her Pokemon, the victory here will be completely Kitsune's — Well maybe the Mightyena will deserve some credit too.

I know I should say something, try to get out of this without a fight but nothing came into my mind, there was just something out-of-place about the whole situation that made it seem scarier… I could see no motive for her trying to spark new conflict between Team Aqua and Magma, as seemed to be her goal from what she said back at the Pokemon centre, a gang war would just harm both teams and everyone else in Hoenn. Sure it might allow Team Rocket to start up operations here but it just didn't feel like that was what she wanted, meaning the real reason must be buried deep in my subconscious.

The Lady, still sitting upon her Rapidash, grabbed her hooded robe, ripping it off and tossing it high into the air revealing herself: her shoulder length hair looked like it had been dyed with blood; her eyes were completely black, which would only be possible with specialized contact lenses; her body was slim but didn't look too weak; and she was wearing what looked like some sort of black swimsuit with a black leather belt with two Poke Balls attached to it as well as various odd looking…

Kitsune pushed me to the ground next to the Mightyena, shocking him as much as me, and her all nine of her tails began to glow a bright white. Iron tail, a technique not easily learnt, making the fact Kitsune was using it that much more impressive.

I looked up into the air, catching a glimpse of the black robe being ripped to shreds as a shower of white needles poured from the sky, before Kitsune's white tails blocked my view as they were sung round to make shield to protect us.

I heard the sound of the needles hitting the iron tail shield that was protecting all three of us, just before I heard the needles hitting the ground around us. As comforting as it was beneath Kitsune's shield, I was worried… She was going out of her way to protect someone who wanted her dead, what made it worse was that I had a feeling that doing such a thing wasn't what she was used to.

I risked a glance at the surrounding scenery: The grass had been shredded, as had most other plants in the area

"That must be a first, Iron Tail being used as a defensive technique," the lady insulted the very use of method of defense that had just saved my life, "it's insane to waste such a perfectly good offensive technique to protect your lives when it'd been a quick painless death if you didn't and now you'll end up dying a slow painful one… odd how you must of signaled her to do that, yet I didn't pick up your command at all, truly such signals are never used by normal trainers.

There was a clunk as a smoking metal device hit the ground, without doubt it was what shredded the robe and shot those needles. I could see that it wouldn't have been possible for a human to see that sort of sneak attack coming, everyone is too used to every else using Pokemon for combat and villains only throwing off an outfit to make themselves look impressive (And ultimately too vain to be a real threat).

A large piece of black fabric slowly drifted down; only as intact as it was because it was on the other side of the device when it went off.

She grabbed one of her Poke Balls and tossed at the ground between us.

"Go, Katar. Kill the girl at any cost. Make sure to give her Pokemon a slow painful death after you've killed her as you still need to harden your heart a bit," she commanded as the Poke ball opened releasing a blurry red glow that faded as it took the form of an average looking absol, though I couldn't remember whether absol were meant to have yellow eyes like this one did.

"Hey, I'm the one who's meant to be going straight for killing the opposing trainer," Kitsune whined, most likely upset that someone had copied a strategy that she considered her own, and as disconcerting as her admitting that she thinks that attacking trainers is the correct way of winning a battle would be in any other circumstances. Well it still scared me a bit anyway.

The absol charged towards me, Kitsune charged towards him, both focusing entirely on each other, watching for any little mistake that'd let them past the other or deliver a quick and deadly strike…

"Wow," Katar, the absol, suddenly exclaimed stopping on the spot, giving Kitsune a chance to jump over him unopposed, swinging a glowing tail under her to whack him in face as she passed. It was a bit disappointing that Katar managed to dig his head blade and tail blade into the ground.

"I still don't see why her presence feels as wonderful as an incoming city leveling earthquake," Katar quickly got to his feet and resumed charging towards me, though the Mightyena leapt into a defensive position in front of me, "or why I feel a little bit queasy because of that, or even why that suddenly hit me like a crowbar… but I'll never let such a thing get in the way of my orders."

"You worthless Absol," I heard the Lady scream out in anger, "don't hesitate, don't stop to make a few meaningless sounds, Don't you dare fall in love with the enemy… hurry up and kill the girl and I might think of reducing your punishment to a painless death."

My eyes drifted away from Katar to Kitsune. She leapt at the Lady, knocking her off the Rapidash, but slipping off her and having to quickly

"Flamethrower," the lady called out. I wasn't surprised that she didn't… why wasn't I surprised that she didn't say the Rapidash's name when she clearly said the Absol's, what was my subconscious hiding from me?

Kitsune bathed in the fire, the way she moved made it look like she was trying to get it to hit all her fur equally.

Kitsune looked quite disappointed when the flames stopped coming, and she leapt into the air, flipping over in midair with her glowing tails flailing. The lady easily managed to roll out of the way, though the Rapidash was not so lucky. One of Kitsune's tails hit its leg; I could hear the crack as the bone shattered under the force. The Rapidash didn't even flinch and merely got back to its feet.

"Hey let go of my tail blade," it snapped me back to watching what was happening much closer to me: the fight between the absol and the mightyena, which was a great contrast to the other fight in a few ways. The absol was certainly strong to be dragging the mightyena around; the mightyena's claws were digging into the ground to attempt to stop Katar's movement but without success.

"Try a Fire Wheel," I barely noticed the lady's voice.

Katar's tail glowed as he swung it with the mightyena still attached, though the black dog's grip on the tail was quickly lost and it tumbled across the ground before getting back on its feet.

Mean while I was left undefended and Katar charged at me, my fear was over powering but somehow my desire for survival managed to come through to protect me.

"I could arrange for you to have a date with Kitsune," I cried out, realizing how stupid saying such a thing must have sounded and my voice quickly trailed off, "that is if it's okay with your master…"

"This isn't working… try using an attack that isn't a fire technique."

"A date?" Katar tilted his head on its side as he paused again; his ears and tail drooped a little out of confusion, "I'm a little confused about the terminology. I think I know what you mean but I don't think I want my throat slit and my lifeless body used as a punching bag… also what do you mean by my master?"

"Katar, how can we win if you keep hesitating? Katar Return. Return," I heard the lady's voice call out and she once again failed to say the name of her Rapidash, though that didn't stop both her Pokemon from dissolving into red energy that then was sucked into their Poke Balls. She grabbed a black ball from her belt and tossed it at the ground, "next time I won't play nice!"

There was a flash of light and she was gone, though oddly a strong smell of vanilla was in the air.

I paused for a few moments trying to gather my thoughts after my first Pokemon battle; I'd never be any good if I couldn't think in a combat situation and couldn't even stay focused enough to see what was happening. I should have stayed in my home valley and become just another person pretending to be a Pokemon breeder, taking credit for all the Eevee own hard work…

The mightyena suddenly leapt at me. I gripped on to his paw and began to struggle as he tried to push it down onto my throat. Odd how he seemed to put only enough weight on it to make me struggle and how easily I managed to roll out from under him.

Of course when I felt his paw on my back I understood why: He didn't want to harm me or even scare me, only to hold me prisoner.

"I have your human and I know you'll do anything to protect her," the mightyena growled and I could easily imagine that its tail must have been wagging, "is she worth enough to you that you'd let me kill her if it meant I'd let her go unharmed?"

I heard myself giggle; it felt like my mind was no longer in control… Kitsune cared about me more than anyone else ever had, but she only cared because she needed me for something and it couldn't be too hard for her to find a replacement. Still it was comforting to know there were trainers worse than me out there.


	8. Possibly not romance…

**Chapter 8:Possibly not romance…**

_(From the perspective of the Mightyena?????)_

Everything is going according to plan. It was easy to outsmart that ninetales and soon I'll be able to return to my pack. The human was giggling a bit, for what reason I cannot be sure, as my kind never laugh. It is hard to figure out any meaning of what she does at all, but maybe it's wrong to take away her only friend… no, I have to keep my mind on my task.

"So now you must decide which is more important," I growled, as I put more of my weight on the paw holding the female human to the ground causing her to go quiet, "your life or your human's. Submit yourself to death by me and I'll let her go unharmed as I have no quarrel with her."

"Why don't we settle this peacefully?" her voice was much softer than it was earlier, merely sitting on the spot, all nine of her tails wagging furiously, "just lift your paw off her and everything will be fine."

Something about her seemed different; she seemed quite… likable, for a lack of a better word. The whole world seemed to fade away, there was nothing but her, and I could just sit stare at her all day…

…No, I could let myself be manipulated with whatever trick she was using, I was not weak enough to fall for such temptation, no mightyena is that weak. I managed to push my paw back down on the human before she got free. I could feel the force of whatever it was she was using trying to tear away my strength of will but I was strong enough to resist.

"Incredible, you have a very strong will to resist my attract technique," her tails only pausing for a moment; she must have already thought of another way to deal with me. No, it's not possible that she could think that fast, it must be some sort of bluff, "even if I was holding back it's full power as it wouldn't be worth it, because acting like I'm really interested in you in anyway is something I couldn't live with. Still the enhanced pheromones should have been much harder to resist. Too bad, even with such a strong mind, you'll eventually fall in love with me anyway as your loyalty to your pack slowly fades…"

"Hey! There is no way I could ever love you," I barked, maybe killing the human would teach the insolent ninetales not to insult me. But then what would stop her getting away? "even with your… um… silky fur? Wondrous tails? Appealing scent? Beautiful eyes? Really I'm having trouble see what could possibly make me love you. You're nothing compared to most female mightyenas. Oh."

By then it was to late, she had a short run up before her leap and knocked me off the human, and at the same time pinned me to the ground. Her attracting technique may not have been able to break my will, but she had gotten me distracted too easily by drawing my attention to her every detail. I was just lucky none of my pack were here to see how I was an embarrassment, not only to my pack, but also to my whole species.

I tried my best to struggle free, but it was hopeless and I could feel her hot breath on my fur. The smell of steam was in the air but it seemed to be fading, being replaced by a faint smell of fire.

The human made some vocal sounds, she sounded both glad and annoyed at or about the ninetales. I could hear the rustling as she pulled herself across the ground. Yes, the ninetales certainly must have landed over her stopping her from getting up easily, thus she must be saying that the ninetales should try to avoid getting so close to landing on her next time.

The hot breath was now on my shoulder. Suddenly there was a sharp pain as teeth tore into my flesh and pulled at my shoulder, probably trying to rip my front entire leg off. I had to escape, but struggling was getting me nowhere.

The human's made some more meaningless sounds, the sounds were loud and seemed displeased with the ninetale's actions.

"Look, Lilac, he accused me of being less attractive than the worthless mutts of his kind!" the ninetales growled at the human, letting go of my shoulder, "the only way I can't make his life any worse is to rip a leg off. He's already got an impossible task that he's convinced he must do, and if he does succeed he'll end up returning to a pack that bullies him so much that he's probably already forgotten his name because he's always called by insults. I could rip all his legs off if you want me to be merciful as he'd die quicker that way without his pack annoying him, except the possiblility of eating the remains."

"Of course I remember my name, it's…" I started, but couldn't manage to finish. How could I have forgeten my own name? Could she be right about me never being anything more than the lowest member of my pack? "Okay, so I don't remember it, maybe returning to my pack isn't such a good idea, but there's no where else for me to go. If I try to join another pack it'd just be the same…"

The human… spoke; it is possible that humans actually had a language so it is a correct word to use. It sounded like I had gotten her sympathy but it wasn't like it'd change anything. A temporary distraction was probably the best that could be arranged.

"Well I guess we can let him live…" the ninetales sighed; her tails drooped a tiny bit. How could she just submit so easily when she was clearly dominant over the human? "I guess we'll have to name him since he'll hang around till we can get rid of him, which we'll do as soon as possible. I'm sure we'll run into some trainer who'll want him soon enough."

More speech from the human, but a sudden jolt of pain as I rolled to my feet stopped me from picking up the emotion behind it. Luckily the pain quickly faded, but it still left me with a limp.

"What do you mean being last is sometimes a good thing?" the nineta… no, I had to start thinking of her as Kitsune if I wanted to be able to gain her trust enough to get a chance to kill her, "well I guess Omega can come with us if you do make sure I get what you promised me, I want to watch him go through a thorough medical examination and you make sure to arrange that method to make sure he isn't a threat while we sleep."

The human approached me, reaching one of her odd front paws towards my head… It was hard not to bite it, but I had to resist the urge, as I needed to make a good impression. She rubbed my head as she spoke, sounding happy, questioning and… surprised?

She turned and started heading off, gesturing with one of her front paws. I couldn't quite place the meaning but I limped after her anyway.

"I hope we don't get into another fight, it'll take days for me to be able to walk properly again, but thanks for accepting me."

The human, Lilac I think her name was, started to move further ahead of us, I could smell that she was a little uncomfortable. I could smell little fear coming from her, in fact she seemed quite comfortable with me and Kitsune behind her even though it'd be easy for us to attack and kill her. She trusted me like I was now a member of her pack though she seemed to act nicer as well.

A small grove of trees caught my eyes, mainly because they also caught Lilac's eyes as well while she approached them. Was it possible that she was sensing something about that grove with a sense I didn't possess? She glanced into them as she pasted, and she fell backwards as she screamed in shock.

The Kitsune ran quickly to aid her, such caring that I even had little of when with my pack, turning to what ever had startled her.

"Well, looks like that evil lady was serious… I wonder if it's dead."

The human made more sounds as she rushed towards whatever had frightened her, the meaning of her words was mysterious to… no, it sounded like she was trying to entice the Kitsune to be merciful or helpful. I was getting used to picking up what she meant but letting the Kitsune know might be giving away an advantage. The human would make a better prize from killing the Kitsune than returning to my pack, if I could understand her enough to dominate over her.

I caught up and looked. I couldn't stop myself from speaking even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do. "This sort of thing never happens in a pack, everyone in a pack is too valuable for this to happen. Good thing it's dead and isn't suffering… it is dead, right?"


	9. Would have been better off dead?

**Chapter 9:Would have been better off dead?**

_(From the perspective of Katar, the Absol)_

"Katar, come out now…"

The voice of my master beckoned, though her voice sounded angrier than normal, this was not surprising since it was the first time we had run from battle. Her voice seemed to echo in my mind. Soon I would have to face that anger as I could only hear her voice because I was already beginning to emerge from my ball.

In a Poke Ball there was no way to tell how much time passes, normal senses do not exist within a Poke Ball as nothing of me really exists when inside it. It always seemed that there was always just enough time to think, no more, no less. When there was nothing to think about days could pass seemingly instantly, though in those circumstances the sudden hunger after being let out was always hit hard. When there was plenty to think about, time was endless. It was a great thing when trying to gather one's thoughts just to go into a Poke Ball for a second or two.

If only I could have another moment to cleanse my mind of the fear caused by her anger things would be much easier, but it was too late for that and my body was already reforming out of reddish energy.

"Why did you fail me?" she hissed, though hissing like she did wasn't natural for a human or all of them would do it, "you got distracted, letting your guard down just because of an attractive ninetales. Really it's unlike you, unlike a Pokemon that I'd want to have with me. You were the only way to take down that girl. You saw the sort of skill she possessed to control her Pokemon in a way that could not be detected; no one can be that good, especially not one so young. I will not allow myself to be replaced, and I will prove that I am greater than her, but it will not be with you."

"…" I tried to speak, but she had somehow gotten her hands round my throat and began to crush it. Perhaps I could have avoided it, though her training had proven resisting her in any way just made things worse. I instinctively tried to look for help in the only other one around: the rapidash. It was pointless, in all the time I've been around that rapidash has never said a word and has never been referred to by any name. That rapidash hadn't even flinched when the ninetales broke its leg. He had been completely broken in by the training.

Yes, the ninetales had distracted me. But who wouldn't be distracted once sensing the path of destruction that lay in her wake, and that she would bring in times to come? Absol are sensitive to such things, though it rarely shows up in living things, only in things like earthquakes. She was something to watch carefully from a safe distance, nothing more.

My master lifted me with one hand and slammed me against a tree. With her other hand she pulled out some device that appeared to be two pieces connected by a single piece of wire, and she tossed it at the tree. Though I could not see what it did, it was easy to guess as wire quickly bound me to the tree, and she caught the ends and one loop of it.

Grabbing one of my unresisting front paws she twisted it round. Even if I could howl out in the pain it caused, I was trained to resist pain. I could feel myself getting weaker, but she was still doing quite a poor job of strangling me. Of course that was probably on purpose, she would never really risk losing me, would she?

Upon my neck she forced my twisted paw, forcing my claws to extend out into my neck. It was then that she let go of the loop of wire, and pulled on the ends. I couldn't breathe. The wire had tied my paw to my throat tight enough to block off my breathing completely.

"Now it ends, goodbye Katar," my master spoke bearing her teeth, as she dropped a Poke Ball to the ground, my Poke Ball,. I heard the crunch as she stamped on it, shattering it. She turned to the rapidash, "Say goodbye to Katar."

The rapidash walked up to me; the broken leg seemed to have no effect on the way he walked. Perhaps he'd finally talk, tell me that this was all a joke. He suddenly turned away, carefully getting good footing with the one of his front legs that wasn't broken. I could feel the warmth of my blood drip down my neck. He lifted both his back legs off the ground and kicked, the hooves coming right for my head…

Pain. It filled my head. I felt too weak to open my eyes to see where I was, but the comforting feeling of the claw marks on my throat healing through means of a potion probably meant I was at a Pokemon Centre. The prior events were still in my mind, it was clear that I had been abandoned. I had no master, I was lost without a purpose, but I could not rest, two female human voices in the room made me want to stay awake to listen; perhaps they would reveal things weren't as bad as it seemed…

"…looks like the Nurse Joy from Oldale was right to be suspicious of Lilac. Most would have assumed she just had a rich family that had foolishly given her a powerful Pokemon to start her off on her journey. Of course the way she has a mightyena tamed in less than a day, when even experienced trainers can't managed it in years, proves she is a lot more than she seems." 

…They must be talking about the girl…

"Still, Jenny, I disagree with the wild conclusions some of your subordinate police officers are jumping to. I don't mean it's not possible that she's a Pokemon pretending to be human with some sort of psychic illusion or just transforming like a ditto. What I mean is the actions they want to take to test it are cruel and against the law. Anyway if she was a Pokemon in disguise, then the bite wound on her hand would've healed by now."

The girl was human, I would've known if that wasn't the case, though I understand how paranoid humans should be of Pokemon taking over from them, it's the sort of thing that keeps them on top.

"Nurse Joy, I do not approve of any of the drastic actions that they have suggested, nor do I care if she's human or not—actually I do if she happens to have fake I.D. saying she's human when she's not—, what I am concerned about is her being corrupted by Team Magma or Aqua. Luckily I've already contacted someone to help her not do anything crazy just because she's so much better at Pokemon training than other people. He should meet her before she gets to Rustburo. "

Suddenly there was the sound of trolleys full of medical equipment being pushed over. I forced open my eyes to look upon the scene…

"I've got to see you do that part of the check up procedure on a conscious Pokemon," it was the white ninetales speaking, and she was out the corridor on the other side of the two humans. She had pinned a chansey to the ground and her tails were wagging furiously, "the chansey in Oldale said that small Pokemon have the option go going through it with no antistatic, and that is something I just have to see."

"I don't care what the chansey in Oldale said," The chansey said firmly, even though she was clearly at the disadvantage, "doing such a thing is never done here, and most certainly not because some sadistic ninetales wants to see it done."

…Weird, but it probably would make more sense if I knew what procedure they were talking about…

"Sorry about that!" the girl, Lilac, called out as she came rushing down the corridor, "I really shouldn't have let her watch Omega get a full examination, still she was curious about it and I didn't think it could do any harm. Um… Okay, I suppose technically I should have made sure it was okay with you first, but when I asked you took it as a joke."

"Glad you're here, we were just about to go looking for you," One of the female humans, assumedly Officer Jenny, said, "everything you told me about this mystery lady and her attack against you checks out, and it certainly helps us with quite a number of cases. It's amazing how many crimes she has committed in the past, but the info you gave us will help with her capture… also Nurse Joy needs to speak to you about her absol you brought in."

"Yes, I do need to speak with you about him," Nurse Joy spoke, beaming at Jenny as clearly things were moving too fast for her liking, "you seem to be a skilled trainer and I'm sure you'll be able to help him adjust from his previous master. The only other option is to put him through extensive testing to see if he is suitable for release or a less experienced trainer, both of which are unlikely. If he can't get a home I'll have to put him down…"

"I…" Lilac unconfidently started, though the ninetales interrupted.

"Come on," she barked, leaping off the chansey, "this is just too perfect: we need to know more about that Lady in order to prepare ourselves for when she attacks again, since I doubt those humans interested in her will be able to catch her. Just please let us take him, I'm getting bored with only the company of those who I can't take out my aggression on. Well I could take it out on Omega, but that'd make him think he's worth my time."

Great, death or being tortured for information I don't have. What's worse is I don't get to make the decision…


	10. The nature of Lilac’s past

**Chapter 10: The nature of Lilac's past.**

From the perspective of Kitsune, the Ninetales 

"No…" it came as a surprise to me, not even a human could possibly fail to see Katar's importance. Knowledge of an enemy provides a great advantage, and it would be vital if we were to avoid any traps that we could face in the future.

"Wait, Lilac!" I barked; I could feel my tails had gone limp and it felt like the worst of it was yet to come, "we need him for us to give us a good advantage, I promise he won't suffer too much. In fact if it has to be, I'll get him to talk without causing any harm at all by making him fall in love with me. After we've finished with him I'm sure we'll find a nice trainer to give him to and everything… Anyway Omega feels a bit lonely since he can't understand you and I hate him, though I won't hurt him because you wouldn't like that. He could really do with someone to talk with."

"I can't take him with me, Kitsune," she looked as though she was about to cry, "I can't even handle controlling you or Omega, certainly not both of you at the same time. I freeze up in battle becoming hopeless to provide any assistance, and we could have been killed out there against that fiend. At least without me, you wouldn't have to worry about her coming after you. I don't want anyone to die because of me."

I stood there shocked, barely noticing her run out the door, picking up her bag as she went. She had left, and I hadn't even seen it coming. All the power a ninetales is meant to have, and all the power I had already learned to control, failed to give me enough of a door into her mind to spot her suffering like this.

At least Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny were as speechless as me. Tracking Lilac would be easy. Nose to the ground I headed after her. I stopped. A ninetales walking by itself nose to the ground would be an embarrassing situation to be caught in, we are meant to be better than that. My species were meant to wait for prey, not track it down. Omega would have to do the tracking then.

I turned and dashed through the Pokemon Centre, quickly finding Omega lying still sedated on a bed. Waking him could have been much fun, but being quick was more important. Fun and quick was still possible. I bit into his tail, quickly jerking away, thus pulling him right off the bed. The bite awoke him but he was still too dozy to make much of a yelp or brace himself for hitting the ground.

"What was that for?" He yawned as he got up onto unsteady feet, the affects of the sedative hadn't worn off yet. "I was having the most bizarre dream. It was snowing and Lilac, that absol, and I were snuggling together to sleep out in the middle of it. You were no where in sight, and your scent was no longer even on Lilac's clothing… I know it sounds boring but it was about to get good."

There was no time to consider the meaning of dreams, especially of a creature that would never have premonitions of any sort, "Lilac has run off because… well that evil lady upset her, and I doubt seeing that absol again helped. You better start tracking her scent or I'll run off without you too."

He started off slow, warbling towards the door, slowly shaking the remaining effects of artificial sleep. He was still too out of it to question my orders. It'd be hard to look dignified while following him, but I had to try. I stretched my tails out, and held my head high in the air, and took up a very strutting walk style. We soon headed straight out the door unobstructed.

"Let them go and don't send any police to make sure Lilac is okay," I heard Nurse Joy say as we left the Pokemon Centre, presumably to Officer Jenny, "this is a matter best left with her Pokemon, it'll help develop better bonds of friendship between them."

Omega dashed sleepily though the streets with me close behind, though his progress was much slower than I would have liked. The trail led us right out of town, and into the sparse area of trees that covered the local landscape.

"So, how are we going to cheer Lilac up?" Omega finally asked, it was a question that felt too important to be asked by one whose nose was in the dirt but a grubby dog like him couldn't have known any better, "when any of my siblings were upset they usually just took it out on me, but Lilac seems too weak to do such a thing. For one thing she isn't dominant over anyone, so she's more likely to be picked on. You wouldn't drag us after her if there wasn't an easy way to fix the problem."

"First off let me do all the talking," the answer wasn't an easy one to come up with, and it was just something I was hoping I wouldn't be asked. Such questions are always the more important ones, "when we find her you just sit back and try to look guilty about her feeling upset. That should bring some comfort to her, though I'm sure I'll be able to talk to her about what happened to help her out. Afterwards I'm sure she'll be in a playful mood for a bit, giving us both a chance to make a better impression on her than we have in the past."

"For a moment I thought you would suggest one of those barbaric human sports like gym battles," Omega was showing more knowledge on human culture than expected of him, "I have heard rumours about them and how humans crave for the small objects that are given for completing them. It's said that it involves putting a human's Pokemon against several unnaturally strong ones… usually with devastating results."

We continued in silence, Omega picking up that I didn't want to hear more almost telepathically. The pattern of my walk probably went out a bit, and his hearing could have picked this up. There was no way anything else could have tipped him off.

There Lilac was, sobbing under a tree. Pink petals fell from it, drifting harmlessly around her. Oddly enough, the flowers were only in bloom right above her, none of the rest of the tree was. In fact none of the other trees were in bloom either. This probably was no coincidence. Flower petals seemed to have some attraction for some humans and this probably lured her to the tree. How a tree would end up like this was beyond my knowledge but it had to be natural.

It had taken most of the day to find her, but we were probably still heading in the right direction to reach the next town. Lilac was at least smart enough not to lead us off course when running off, right?

Omega lay down silently a short distance from her, faking silent tears quite well for a first time, though he completely failed to stop his tail vigorously wagging. I carefully walked closer too, the petals felt nice under my feet.

"Lilac, please don't be sad…" it wasn't hard to sound sincere, it actually felt like I wasn't faking, but that would be impossible, "it makes us sad too. We can help if you let us, and there is no way that evil human female will be able to harm us if we're together. Please tell Omega and I what is wrong."

"It is always said that espeon would do anything to protect their master, and their very psychic powers are developed to meet that purpose," Lilac's voice sounded sad and quite empty, "what if the danger was not physical, but mental instead? If they desired to protect then they'd just take away all the pain, all the fear, and all the emotions that were undesirable. Logically no harm could possibly come from such tampering, it's not like they would ever stop tampering to keep their masters stable. It's not like anyone would be willing to leave such protection behind…"

"In a way I always knew they did do it, but part of the effect was stopping me, or any of my family from worrying about it," tears began to drip down her face, "I remember when I was quite young, I was right there in the same room as my parents as they were brutally murdered. I know I was too young to do anything to stop it but that was no excuse for what happened next… It was as if no one even noticed they were dead, not even my older brother. Everyone continued with life as normal, we were all prevented from doing anything else. The murder was never even reported to the police and as far as the world is concerned both of them are still alive. It was almost a perfect utopian state of mind we were in."

"…But even the espeon, developing their powers for that specific purpose, had limitations," I stood in a shocked silence, though I managed to catch a glance at Omega. He was being quite quiet considering he shouldn't have been able to understand what was happening, "they are mainly diurnal, so the powers manipulating us were stronger during the day, and during the night it was much weaker, and especially round the time of the new moon. But the biggest problem, and certainly the one that allowed me to leave, is that no espeon uses their powers during the Twilight between day and night other than one. Why that one espeon didn't stop me is something I will never know…"

"I'm no Pokemon trainer, and I can never be one since I'm not used to my emotions like everyone else is," she concluded, "I'm not even sure I can manage to cope with life much longer outside the protection of espeon. I know it was easy for me to accept understanding Pokemon, as, in a way, I always could when the espeon wanted me to, but it is something no other trainer is capable of and thus isn't a skill that is of much use. The worst part is that I'm sure of who killed my parents now, and I can't even feel angry about it or make myself want revenge. In fact I would feel guilt if anything did happen."

"No… you can become a great Pokemon trainer," a sick feeling was in my stomach, and my voice was weak. A memory tried to surface in my mind, though I tried to remember what it was that Lilac had reminded me of. It was beyond my grasp, too painful to remember. All that mattered was cheering Lilac up about her painful past; my past would wait till another day, "we will battle in a gym and earn a badge, it'll prove you're good enough. If we fail I promise I won't hate you if you try to catch me in a Poke Ball…"

I barely managed to stop myself adding the fact she'd fail if she tried anyway, it would not have been helpful. She glanced up at me with her sad eyes, but I could see things were going to start getting back on track faster than I hoped.

"Will catching you be enough to cheer me up," she almost laughed, "it's difficult to decide which would make me happier, giving you a reason to behave or earning a badge. It's not like I'm the type that feels getting a badge is a great achievement, but as much as I need to get control of my life, I'd hate to make you uncomfortable by catching you. Well the duty of a good Pokemon trainer is to keep their Pokemon happy, usually from good victory celebrations, so winning a badge it is."

"Kitsune, you said we weren't going to do that," Omega whined, "I don't want to be battered around by some Pokemon for no comprehendible reason. Win or lose the gym leader is said to stay on top, there's not even a good meal for fighting."

That pushed Lilac into uncontrolled laughter, a successful plan well executed. It was hopefully the first of many to come on the way to my goal. Making promises like that would probably be necessary and keeping a good reputation would require me to fulfill those promises.

"You don't have to participate if you don't want to."


	11. Thieves of Magma and Aqua

**Chapter 11: Thieves of Magma and Aqua.**

_From the perspective of a Team Magma member_

Staying in stealth fully out of sight is difficult in Team Magma uniform, but I had to manage. I had to see if it was true. I snuck through the edges of Petalburg Forest.

It was just as I was told. I could see the girl handling a mightyena and a white ninetales in quite an amateurish way. Even from a distance I could see that not only was the girl stupid enough to let them get the upper hand and do what they want, she was also seemed a bit nervous, which would solidify the two Pokémon's belief that they owned her, not the other way around.

The question is why did that strange lady tell me about her?

That lady with her injured rapidash gave me the information as if she thought I'd need to actually steal mightyena from people to get enough for my quota… Team Magma doesn't care about how many I get, as long as we get some and Team Aqua doesn't. Mightyena are most useful in teaching recruits how to properly handle Pokémon, nothing beats a mightyena at removing any unnecessary lenience from the minds of a trainer when getting Pokémon to obey. It is clear that the mightyena this girl has gotten isn't anywhere near as vicious as all others I've seen before.

A flicker of blue to my right, Team Aqua! Instinctively my hand reached for my Poké Balls…

"No need for that," a familiar voice, followed by the cute giggle that had me fall in love, "it's only me. I suppose you have to be a bit on edge to be doing what we're doing, playing both sides of the Aqua and Magma feud. I know that evil lady told you to go after the girl too, just for a mightyena, but I can tell you what she didn't tell you. Her conscious mind tells her that the girl is unbeatable and desires to take what little she has left away, before taking the position she once had in the grand order. On the other hand her unconscious mind doesn't communicate well with her conscious mind and says she not only underestimated the rather clueless girl's weak Pokémon, but also the guilt of ruin the girl's life once before made it hard to do it again… The rest of the mind was messed up with artificially induced delusions and amnesia, thus I'll have to meditate on it to find what it all is about."

She was tall and slim, quite an attractive figure overall. It was just too bad about her blue dyed hair lying lifelessly down her neck, only long enough to reach her shoulders, and the fact her eyes were always dilated to the point her whole eyes looked black… I suppose I should be more hateful about her Team Aqua outfit, but I know profit and promotion comes easier to those who cheat to get to the top, profit instead of loyalty to Team Magma's goals.

"I'm starting to see why you keep the fact you're a telepath secret," I laughed as though it was the first time we had talked about this, "I'm just glad I'll never fear your gift, at least until the telepathic resistance fails. Its just too bad I only got the prototype shot of it and not the recipe as it'd be much more profitable than our current jobs… Now I've finally told you my secret that you've hounded me for in the past, so tell me something of yourself. I mean anything but your name, we could be forced to betray each other to our teams"

"I wouldn't try reading your mind here even if I could. Something powerful is scanning the area for psychic disturbances. Since it isn't from a human it'll be dangerous for me to try to disrupted it," it was odd how she could go for joyful to completely serious so quickly, though nothing compared to how weird it was for a telepath not to be mentally scared by their powers, "…I never told you about the problems for psychics when trying to affect Pokémon. It's similar to the problem psychic Pokémon have when trying to affect human minds. For now we'll have to set a trap to steal that mightyena when the girl decides to head through the forest tomorrow morning. You'll have to wait to know my secrets, but you will be told someday even if I have to tell you in my last breath."

"So we steal the mightyena and kill the girl just as the lady told us to? Doesn't sound like your style and it'd be quite a risky since neither team stands for unnecessary stealing or kil—"

"I thought it'd be obvious that the lady we met was responsible for the massacre we heard about. I guess I underestimate how much my abilities show me. We are to leave the girl unharmed, and we're only taking the mightyena as it's too soft to be of any help in a fight. Both Teams want revenge for what happened but the lack the power to stop her… That girl on the other hand will be much harder for her to kill, thus it is the best way to get revenge. Perhaps once its all over we can return her mightyena if we can't force it to become vicious enough for our purposes. I suggest a harmless pit fall trap with a few upgrades of my own design."

It was going to be a long night making the trap, but how could I possibly refuse to help her?

One cannot regret not getting any sleep when one works on a masterpiece, but I could regret that it'd only be a one-use thing. Waiting to see it in action was the worse part, especially when I could see clouds rapidly building up on the horizon, coming closer every second. I had taken cover behind a tree, and watched the road waiting for the girl.

She came, with both her Pokémon walking with her, though I could clearly see that her ninetales was growling at the mightyena to make it keep its distance from the girl. They walked right onto our trap, the ground breaking at exactly the right moment to catch them as it was triggered by remote, not weight. The slanted greased sides made sure they slipped into each other and would have to stand on each other to get up, in theory causing a bit of trouble for them. And by the sounds of their muffled shouts it was a success.

"Looks like you fell into our trap," I called out, stepping out from behind a tree, "and you should blame this on yourself as you angered one who can afford to get help dealing with problems—"

"—Lucky for you we aren't very good at taking orders," the telepath continued, as she stepped out from behind a different tree, "we were meant to kill you and just grab your mightyena, but we much prefer to have an enemy enraged with a lust for revenge. We'll even leave you with your ninetales as it wouldn't be sporting otherwise. Now you go to sleep for a short time."

It was suddenly quiet from the pit, the sleep powder bombs hadn't even made a sound when the telepath activated them and all within the pit were knocked out with ease.

"We have to hurry to make sure one of the Pokémon isn't obstructing the girl's breathing," I could see in my companion's face, a tear ran down her cheek, that she hated to do this to the girl, "then we can get the stupid dog, tie it up and carry it back to the cages before dividing them equally between us. Remember as far as our superiors are concerned we didn't let each other get a single one."

"Go Angela, you heard the orders!" I called out as I tossed a Poké Ball into the air, calling upon a Pokémon that was certainly not one of Team Magma's favourites (I was only allowed to have since it was too useful to go without) and the rest happened was like a trance…

… The mightyena whining snapped me out of it. I found I was walking through the forest following the Telepath. The mightyena on my back, it's paws all tied together and its mouth muzzled all with some of Tangela's vines. It had finally woken up and we were almost at the cages, just over the next hill. The cages were just basically two metal cages, with thick bars that could easily be electrified if needed, designed to be hooked up to a helicopter for transport…

"Someone is messing with the cages and freed the mightyena we've already captured!" I screamed as I dropped the dog, and ran towards the boy tampering with the cages assisted by a skarmory. I felt like something was wrong with the situation. The kid didn't look like a professional, with his yellow vest, white tee shirt, blue jeans, and brown hair, but there was just something wrong.

She was no longer with me! The telepath had run off. She would never abandon me when it was just a kid either of us could beat. She would usually stay to make sure I didn't cause too much harm. Why would she leave now—She's a telepath. She would know exactly what kind of threat the kid was, thus there must be no chance. It was too late the boy had seen me.

Thus I had made my first mistake.

"Thorn," He called out as if he was an about to give a Pokémon an order to attack. Thorn was probably the skarmory's name.

I didn't focus of hearing what command he was giving. I was too busy grabbed all of Poké Palls and tossing them into the air, "Attack!"

A second mistake, the skarmory had flown right at me, far too close for me to have any chance of escape. I didn't even stay conscious long enough to feel the pain of several of my ribs cracking under its powerful attack.


	12. Attempted Heroism

**Chapter 12:Attempted Heroism**

_(From the perspective of Lilac, the human)_

"Ouch!"

Kitsune's yelp of pain woke me. But what had happened…

"Omega!" I yelled out, trying to leap to my feet though Kitsune was on top of me. I could feel the tears building up, as I could see he was no longer with us. It was my fault, "they took him, didn't they? We didn't even get the chance to fight back. He was only with us because he liked me. It was me who got us into the trouble with that lady in the first place."

"You're not thinking straight," Kitsune growled, struggling to get a foothold on the greased sides of the pit, "he was only going to be a hindrance anyway, and he was probably even trying to come up with a scheme of sorts. You shouldn't have liked him at all with the way he wanted you. A form of spite against me, you could say, he only wanted you so I couldn't have you. Trust me, we're better of without him… We should be more worried about the greased sides of the pit and how easy prey we'd be if someone decided to attack us, which is quite likely since he is here and woke us."

"I just love to watch unstoppable forces of nature," a cheerful voice called out, and it took a few moments for me to realize that it was from an absol, the absol named Katar, "and that is what your presence feels like to me… I just got bored from watching you sleep for hours on end after those two got the jump on you, so I flicked a stone in to make it more interesting. So are you going to kill the human or is there something else that your destructive energies are meant to do?"

"…I suppose not then," Katar muttered disappointedly when Kitsune didn't even bother responding. I certainly couldn't have said anything useful either, especially when he didn't even acknowledge that I could hear him. He wasn't to know I could understand, "it would have been a bit disappointing anyway, your energy should be for something much bigger and the human is somewhat amusing. I might as will help you out so we can get to that point sooner, as it'll be something to remember. Just trust me for a few moments…"

I couldn't see what was happening, but I could hear what sounded like the air somewhere above me was being shredded by something. Fur was shoved into my face. I couldn't breath. Kitsune had gotten into a defensive position over me to protect us both. The sound changed, or at least was added to it. It sounded like a full-blown landslide, though it was muffled by Kitsune's fur. I needed to breathe soon.

A moment longer and I would have passed out. Kitsune stood up off me and walked out of the pit. The pit had developed a much shallower slope at one side, and none of it was slippery anymore. As I got unsteadily to my feet, while taking some quite deep breaths, I caught a glance at Katar, his fur had gotten a few clumps of dirt in it. He must have used quite a powerful razor wind technique to cave the ground and blow away the grease. The wind was blowing quite strongly, and the sky was clouding over fast. The storm that was meant to hit was almost here.

"You have no concern for our safety and yet want us to trust you?" Kitsune's growl was deep with anger, "that technique would of ripped the flesh off mine and Lilac's bones if I didn't make a complete shield of Iron Tail to protect us. If it wasn't for the fact you aren't surprised about us surviving I would say you were trying to achieve just that."

"Thanks Katar," I had to try to be as polite as I could, partially to try and apologize for Kitsune's rudeness, but it was just too difficult not to sound distrustful. I had to have him help us find Omega, "can you please show us which wa—"

"Follow me," Katar interrupted as he made a sudden dash deeper into the forest, quite a logical direction, both away from the coming storm front and into a more sheltered area. A flash of lightning illuminated the forest for a moment. It was not going to be a nice storm to be caught in.

I quickly swung my backpack off, sliding my pocketknife out of it and slipping it into a concealed pocket on my dress. If I was to keep up with Katar, then I couldn't let myself be weighed down by my pack. It was reasonably easy to catch up with Katar, as he clearly didn't want to lose us. A quite glance behind me confirmed Kitsune was following, and that she was quiet just because she had grabbed my pack in her mouth.

The rumble of thunder reached us, followed by another flash, but this time the thunder only lagged behind a few moments.

"Mouthful, eh?" Katar was clearly talking to Kitsune again, but now wasn't the time to persuade him to acknowledge my existence. Not while Omega was probably in danger. It was about time I started to act like a proper Pokémon trainer. I had to, not just for Omega, but also if I wanted to stand a chance in a gym battle, "I know you would probably want to ask what happened after you left if it wasn't for that. Plain and simply, it was decided that I wasn't mentally damaged enough to make me dangerous to a trainer, though returning to the wild wasn't an option… Too bad I accidentally broke the Pokéball they put me in while trying to carry it and run. The Pokémon Centre did everything right to stop me escaping, but their responsibilities basically end as soon as they hand a Pokémon to a human. At least the human I was given to should recover, since he was already at the Pokémon Centre so treatment should have been administered quickly. I guess I might as well warn you that the police have sent a spy to keep your human from doing things they don't want her to do, possibly an elite assassin like my previous master but that may just be wishful thinking on my part."

Injured a trainer, possibly fatally, just to escape? I thought all that the mental tests would have been accurate enough to predict that would happen, and at least take longer. What reasons could Katar have to do such a thing, especially tricking Nurse Joy about his stability? This was not the time to question the only chance of rescue Omega has. It was quite possible that he was telling the truth about the police spy, though an assassin was impossible, right?

"It's nice to have your company, I'd hate to have to run backwards and forwards between disasters," Katar's words suddenly struck me, he wasn't going after Omega after all, "I had a vision of someone important dying an unusually impressive death considering the circumstances and I want to see it, I'm sure there will be a free meal opportunity there too. We're almost there and on time too. Quite lucky, but I can't tell you what's going to happen as that'll give you a chance of interfering and ruining the whole thing."

Rain started to hail down, with a few more flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder.

I could faintly hear Kitsune's muffled growl, "Dark types can't see the future, so stop pretending, or announcing your delusions as it's wasting our time," judging by the lack of reaction from Katar, he mustn't have heard her. It was then she dropped my pack.

"Look!" she barked. Up on the hill, some distance away, was a boy in a yellow vest, standing looking around as if searching for something. His glance came my way and he started running our way, "he looks suspicious enough to be the spy Katar mentioned. What human would be out here in this storm by themselves… Look at it this way, he might be working with whoever took Omega, so for you, Lilac, it's a win-win situation no matter who he works for."

Kitsune burst into a quick attack, dashing round into the bushes so he would not see her, I could see exactly what was going to happen but I ran after her anyway. She was going to lung at him, knocking him to the ground, before sinking her fangs into his throat. Shouting would not stop her; nothing would save the potentially innocent boy. But that was not how it happened.

She lunged all right, knocking him to the ground. Although the flash of lightning hitting a nearby tree was unexpected, the tree burst into flames in the deafening thunder and toppled over towards where human would have been if Kitsune hadn't attacked him. The wet grass helped them both slide completely out of the way. I continued to run, he was still in danger, and the thunder may not of given Kitsune enough of a fright to make her leg him free.

"Interfering Vixen!" Katar howled out, "his death would have been more impressive than just being crushed by that tree, it would have been much more mess than that as there were some rather unique unknown variables involved, but you had to go and ruin it all!"

"Um..thanks, Ninetales. Now would you please get off of me?" I heard him say, and I could imagine him having a slight smile while he spoke, probably in shock from how close he came to death and the fact Kitsune was pinning him to the ground.

"Kitsune, get off him," a firm voice always gets obedience right after a big shock, and such a voice came easily to me this time. The fact this was unusual also may have helped get Kitsune to obey and she let him up right away, "now sit."

As the boy stood up I managed to get a look at all of his features. He looked about 5 and a half-foot tall, probably weighting in the range of 100 pounds, and looking about 14 years old. Details that I'd normally miss flowed easily into my mind, unrestricted by emotions that normally took control. Blue-gray eyes with flecks of yellow, combined with brown hair that seemed to naturally spike out at odd angles, and his lightly tanned skin made him look a bit like my dream impression of a handsome prince. His clothes didn't match that, as he was dressed in a light-weight yellow vest over a white t-shirt and dark-blue jeans.

"Oh, hi! Is this your ninetales that saved me? Well, thanks to both of you," the boy said, recovering far too quickly from the shock to be human. Still he had to be human, as no one had made robots advanced enough to look perfectly human, "so, what's your name? Mine is Ryan, glad to meet 'cha. Not really time to talk, is it, for now we have to get out of this storm. I think I've got this mightyena that is looking for his trainer at a nearby cave. I told him to wait there, so he probably did. Is his trainer, by any chance, you? I found him with Teams Magma and Aqua."

With a wave of his hand, gesturing for me to follow him, we ran through the forest. Hopefully it was Omega he had stashed away, I would never forgive myself if it wasn't.

"I don't like him, he could still be a spy," Kitsune stated, her voice showed she was still a bit shaken by the lightning, as she followed, barely in earshot. It felt wrong to listen to her talk to Katar, but I couldn't resist. She had underestimated how good my hearing was, though this was probably influence by the fact she was probably temporarily deafened by the thunder, "but if Lilac likes him I suppose I can just watch him cautiously, only dealing with him when he makes a mistake. I'm sure you can't wait to see that… Till then I might learn a bit about human mating rituals, but there will certainly more fun things to spend the night doing."

"Sounds better than staying out in a storm, though it wouldn't really appeal to me in any other circumstances. I can foresee that nothing especially fun to watch happening tonight."

Lucky I have a perfectly good education in pokemon breeding, I know how to pick up on and manipulate love in eevees and adapting that knowledge should allow me to avoid any stupid romance. I have to stay focused on being a good trainer, and not get as emotional as I usually do.


	13. Learning to paint?

**Chapter 13:Learning to paint?**

_From the perspective of Katar, the Absol)_

Staying the night in a cave with two humans can't be too bad. The girl, Lilac, certainly seems nicer than I'm used to. Weak too. She is important, to the ninetales, the mightyena, my original master, and now it seems even this new human. Who is she really, beyond her name and her past? I sense that she does not bring chaos and she does not bring order, at least not by herself, a nexus perhaps, but of what?

Still it doesn't explain why she, and the vixen are so willing to welcome me, inviting me to stay with them for the night. I'm sure I shall find out, and at worse my life will go back to the way it was.

"Omega!" I look up to see Lilac giving the mightyena a hug, tears rolling down her cheeks. Omega looked surprised and unsure about what to do, quite a boring reaction, as most mightyena's would have mauled a person who surprised them instead of trying to think the situation through. Quite boring, "I promised myself I wouldn't cry, but just can't help it. It was my fault that you had to go through that. Please forgive me."

Kitsune was a bit too quiet. I took a quick glance her way; she had a similar confused look as Omega as well as a spark of jealousy. This could get interesting, though it should have already gotten into a violent situation with the emotions involved. Was that fox to concerned about harming her human to tear apart Omega? At least it'd happen sooner or later anyway, as soon as Lilac wasn't hugging him. Perhaps I couldn't see it happening in my mind because Omega is unimportant in the whole scheme of things. Certainly a flaw in my abilities.

"Ryan, you never told me what you were doing here." Lilac looked up at the other human. Omega started to fall asleep! Tiredness should have made him more vicious, yet he fell asleep instead, "you may have saved Omega's life, but Kitsune saved your life and that of all your Pokémon, so I should at the very least knew a bit about who she saved," she finished with a childish giggle.

"Me? Well, I'm traveling through Hoenn for the Pokémon Leaque," there was only a hint of nervousness in Ryan's voice. I was not perfect at understanding humans, but I got the feeling he wanted to change the subject so he wouldn't have to lie too much, "I haven't been to any gyms over here yet, but my partners and I got through the Johto Circuit and made it to the top ten in the tournament over there. I'm sure they'd be glad to meet you."

"I feel I should introduce my Pokémon… I mean they technically aren't mine… I don't actually mean that either, as it'd just be weird for wild Pokémon to travel with a human," Lilac was nervous about meeting more Pokémon, "the ninetales is Kitsune and the mightyena is Omega, as you probably already managed to pick up. The Absol is called Katar, though I don't think I'd like to call him that for too much longer as it might remind him of his previous trainer… um… That's about it, I think it's your turn now."

"Your name is Kitsune? That's a wonderful name, very beautiful," Ryan looked towards the fox as if memorizing every detail so as making an exact copy would be possible if required, before giving both Omega and I the same treatment, "Omega and Katar. Got it. Nice to meet you, guys."

"This is Sketch, a smeargle, in case you've never seen one before," Ryan said, releasing a Pokémon, though it was no surprise that it was in fact a rather normal, though young, looking Smeagle. The red paint tail wasn't too rare, so it probably wasn't worth me noticing though I did anyway.

"Hi! I'm Sketch!" the smeargle seemed to speak a bit energetically at first, till he got a fright when Omega looked up at him sleepily and growled a rather pathetic growl, "you're scary. Stop it."

Sketch looked like he was about to cry because of how frightened he was, though it only took him a few seconds to quickly dash over to hide behind Kitsune. I watched with my eyes wide open, as a minor twitch, unnoticeable to the untrained eye, indicated Kitsune was going to attack the young Pokémon. She didn't, and the glance she gave me and the way her tails slowly wagged told me why. She wouldn't attack because I'd enjoy it too much. Yet still she had wanted my company for this night.

"Wow, Kitsune. Your fur looks soft and warm," Sketch couldn't have been aware of the destructive power he was so close to, too powerful to predict, since he showed no fear, seeming to forget about Omega instantly. Yet he somehow didn't reach out to touch her fur, too bad as since her tails were closest to him it would have been her braking point, "don't you get really hot in that?"

She broke. A quick spin, and she easily got the smeargle by the throat before anyone had time to react. She held him partially in the air as she began to lay down, and soon she had him back on the ground, holding him like a piece of meat she was about to eat.

"Kitsune, let go of me! I don't want to hurt you!" I couldn't believe it, not only had she not instantly snap his neck or rip his throat out, but by the way his voice was still strong she wasn't even squeezing hard enough to give him breathing troubles. Of course he did not see it this way, and electricity started to spark off his paws, "fine, Kitsune. If you won't let go, I'll make you."

"Sorry about that, Kitsune is just a bit playful. Really, she'd never do any harm to anyone," I hadn't even noticed Lilac had let go of Omega, though I knew she was lying about Kitsune's innocence. I could feel she had killed in cold blood before, and would bring a destruction that the world would remember till the end of time. Fear is always a good motivator for support. Surprisingly Kitsune just let Sketch go when Lilac got to her, and Lilac picked him up in her arms, "don't worry Sketch, as long as you don't get too close to Kitsune she'll never force you into these little games. In fact she only did it because you'd be scared, be brave and she actually can be quite nice."

"You seem nice, Lilac. We should be friends. Can we be friends?" He seemed to think Lilac was good enough protection from Kitsune, and was already calming down already. Lilac looked comfortable too while cuddling such a small Pokémon.

"I hear smeagle like to paint," Kitsune didn't give a chance for Lilac to answer, and Lilac did actually look like she would have. Yet humans can't understand Pokémon. A little more insight on why Lilac is important would be nice, yet it isn't everything. If Kitsune doesn't want Ryan to know about Lilac understanding Pokémon then he probably doesn't already know and there is some other thing important about her, "I could always learn, as one such as I would love to leave a lasting mark that humans would recognize as mine. Painting is sure to have some other purpose too."

As close to apologizing as I've ever seen a ninetales do, though she was probably had a selfish reason for doing so. Lilac slowly put Sketch on the ground with a smile, "Ryan, don't interfere with this at all, I think they'll manage to become friends quite quickly now and I don't want to risk ruining it," things were getting less and less promising to get interesting by the moment.

"Sure, I'll teach you to paint! It's really easy, I'm sure you can do it," quick to forget what had happened he began to draw on the ground, probably ruining his tail paint with the dust that covered the ground. He'd learn.

Kitsune tried to copy the technique in silence; though her strokes showed signs of her trying to improve on what she was seeing. Her ears stopped being as perked up as they were only a moment before, a ninetales hates being seen as a fool and I didn't need to look to know that all she had managed with to shift the dust of the floor and messed up one of her tails.

"You need paint to paint, silly," Sketch laughed hysterically, luckily he stopped painting or he would have ruined his work and he held his tail out towards Kitsune, "rub your tail against mine then try painting, it'll work better"

"How hard is the paint to get out of fur afterwards?" a ninetales would never risk ruining their fur, unless for something really important, like revenge, "you wouldn't want to ruin my fur, would you?"

I caught glimpse of Ryan and Lilac out of the corner of my eye. They were both watching, both looking like they were trying hard to resist saying something. In fact it seemed like they both were reframing from commenting on what Kitsune had said. Is it even possible to find two humans that understand Pokémon in the same place? No, it wasn't. I must be wrong about one of them.

"It comes right out," Sketch lunged his tail towards one of Kitsune's, splattering it with paint. A smeargles fur is meant to resist being stained with paint, he was doomed now even with his ability to make his action look completely innocent, "now let's see what you can draw."

I heard the running; everyone else knew Sketch was in trouble as they watched Kitsune fail to wipe the paint off on the ground. Omega leapt between both of them, turning his head towards Sketch, "Run," he growled, and it was amazing how quickly Sketch started crying in fear and running to Ryan.

But a ninetales is actually more likely to seek out revenge on a running target; it is bravery that makes them back down. Lilac managed to tackle Kitsune and hug her round the neck, thought this barely slowed her down. Kitsune shook around a bit, forcing Lilac's weak hold on her to fail.

"He painted one of my tails!" Kitsune's growl sounded demonic, at last some excitement. It even looked like blue flames were arching off her tails, swirling round into balls. One of these blue fireballs began to burn away the paint. Will-o-wisp. Kitsune's tails started wagging again and she rapidly calmed down, "well I can't breath fire anymore, but this technique I can use and always wanted to. And they said my early evolution made it impossible. Thanks Sketch, but if you paint my tails again I won't forgive you… I wonder…"

A blue fire ball drifted to the tip of one of her tails, which she then touched to the ground. "…I guess I'm ready to learn from Sketch when he feels safe around me again, it looks like nothing I've seen before and certainly not what I intended," she laughed.

I walked over to look at the two pictures… A picture of a very crude red ninetales, looking quite cute considering how terrified Sketch should have been of Kitsune. The other one was a round burn mark in the ground, though there was a strange symbol in the middle of it, but I could quite make it out from where I stood. I took a few steps closer. It was a symbol humans often use to mark areas they ruined with wastes, it meant biohazard.

"I don't think anymore introductions would be safe tonight, and it'd probably take too long any way judging by the results of this intro," Lilac giggled, as she sat on the ground where she fell after being shook off, "we're all getting tired and everything, and the storm should pass right over during the night. Since we have no fire you may still wish to have your Pokémon out to snuggle with for warmth but then we might get kept awake all night as they introduce themselves to each other. We also should wait till we get to a Pokémon Centre so as any accidental injuries will be quick to deal with."

Snuggling up with someone else through the night? A new experience, and it shouldn't soften me up too much.

"Katar," Kitsune barked at me, "you sleep with Omega, I really couldn't stand him being around Lilac and I think I might be developing a conscience because I didn't want to leave him cold by himself. If he wakes me up then you'll suffer, too bad I didn't get to see all of Ryan's Pokémon as I'm sure some of them would love to know how much you wanted to watch him die."

"Sounds fine to me," Omega leaped on me, knocking me over into Sketch's painting which was still wet. Even though he was tired I had failed to notice him circle around me to attack like that. How could I have lost so much skill so quickly? "You haven't said a thing all night, but it's right for the two most dominant to sleep together."


	14. Gym Battle

**Chapter 14: Gym battle!**

_(From the perspective of Kitsune, the Ninetales)_

Ryan I know what your hiding, I know what you really are," I had gotten up early so as Lilac would not have to hear my conversation. I might have only met Ryan yesterday but it was already clear how things were. It just wasn't time for Lilac to find out about it, "I also know how much work you have put in to hiding the facts. The one mistake you made wasn't even one a human would have picked up on. Humans just don't have the sense of smell to notice."

"Kitsune…don't tell Lilac," Ryan replied, his understanding of what I was saying was discomforting even though I knew why he could. His nervousness was still delicious, "there's no reason to. Besides, having human company in any form is making her happy. Would you really destroy Lilac's happiness just because I'm not what I appear? Everyone lies sometimes, Kitsune. I just tell the same one constantly."

"Exactly why I haven't told her already," I cared nothing about my tails portraying how I felt. It was not like him knowing my joy would cause any problems, "you're potentially useful and have already shown some intelligence. If we work together nothing could get in our way, as it is certain we both want the same thing in the end. To make the world a better place. The question is, are you willing to serve me and help my plans?"

"We've just met," his response was not that of total loyalty. It was too optimistic of me to think that would happen. The scent of fear betrayed his attempt to hide that he didn't have the goals I assumed he did, "I'd be happy to chat and everything, but I don't think we should really be rushing things like this. Who knows how different our plans really are? Now that we're up we might as well prepare breakfast for everyone before heading off to "

Once Lilac was up there wasn't much of a chance of continuing to talk to him, and soon we were off on the uneventful short trip to the Rustboro Pokémon centre. Even Omega and Katar didn't speak with each other, even though they stuck together.

It looked very much the same as the other two Pokémon Centres I had been to. A gym battle would be a new experience and it wasn't far off now that we were here. A win would be guaranteed anyway, as I was strong enough to make up for the weakness of Katar and Omega.

"Remember I don't want to be involved in the gym battle," Omega barked at Lilac as she approached the front desk to ask for Nurse Joy, "I'm not into fighting... I always lose."

"Before Lilac gets any strange ideas because none of her Pokémon actually have Poké Balls at this time, I'm only here to watch Kitsune cause serious harm to someone as a build up for her big rampage," Katar stayed back away from everyone else all of a sudden, even away from Omega. He was slightly scared, but not the same fear as if he was hiding something. "If I'm given a single order from her I'll show her what I would have done when I was ordered to kill her if Omega didn't stop me."

"Lilac which two Pokémon are you going to use in your gym battle," Ryan emphasized the word 'two' since he had picked up on the fact I was the only one willing, "I'd happily let you have your gym battle before mine, but your team doesn't look like a good one to take on Roxanne, the gym leader here. Perhaps lending you one of my Pokémon would be of some help."

There was too much talking to get points through to Lilac. Needing two Pokémon for the gym battle would cause a problem. Who out of Omega and Katar would be best to force into this? It's not like I approve of gym battles, only that I promised Lilac that we would to cheer her up.

"Ah, Lilac Blossom All-Weather I assume," Nurse Joy said, coming out of a back room. "I just had a call from your brother Shisso who said you'd arrive now. Odd how he got the timing perfectly right, must be the espeon he has… Well he sent a Pokémon for you, saying something about it being too powerful to keep as a pet. Referred to it as Biohazard for some reason. Here!" She tossed a Pokéball to Lilac…

… Lilac fumbled with it, dropping it to the ground. It popped open and red energy flowed out, taking the form of a Pokémon. As soon as it finished I recognized what it was.

It was an umbreon, though not perfectly normal for one. The fact that he looks noticeably smaller, not much really but still noticeable, was not the only thing different, the rings on his body were a pale blue, exactly the same shade as my eyes on the rare occasion I got a chance to see them in a reflection. The rest of the fur was certainly black, but there was just something odd about how light shined off it in a rainbow pattern. His eyes were like emeralds, looking almost like they were compound eyes because of the illusion of crystal shape the impurities in the colour created. The most noticeable thing was a yellow piece of fabric tied round his head, with a black symbol on the front. The same one that my will-o-wisp had burnt into rock yesterday.

"Greetings mortals," he barked, his stance with his tail erect showed he thought he was dominate, "I shall never fear anything like you mortals do as I am no longer like you. I cannot be harmed till we walk out into the light of a new world, as that is what my sister, the only other one that wasn't born dead out of my litter, predicted… Of course a Poké Ball does bind my loyalties somewhat. No time for hanging around here, I have to get to the gym to show off my immortality," he turned to look at me, his stare felt quite insulting, "then I shall have my fun with you, my vixen."

Problem solved. Lilac certainly looked shocked, though Nurse Joy would probably just see it as shame of dropping a Poké Ball. I'd have to let him get hurt quite a bit in the gym battle so his pride would be ruined when I come to save the entire match by myself.

"Off to the gym then," Lilac said, "Kitsune we'll get your surgery to allow you to breath fire afterwards, if there aren't any problems that'd get in the way."

The gym arena wasn't as large a battlefield as I was used to. Fights in confined spaces would quicken a fight, and removing many advantages I was used to exploiting. Certainly unfair, as was the fact the terrain was rocky with a few rocks bigger than I was. The rules that were called out by Roxanne seemed simple enough, though fights weren't meant to have rules, and the battle was about to begin.

"Lilac, send Biohazard out first," I barked, seeing how quickly Lilac obeyed me certainly gave hope to my long-term goals, "if he's powerful then I might not even have to fight."

"Go, Biohazard!"

"Go, geodude," Roxanne called out releasing her Pokémon from its Poké Ball. There is nothing special about a geodude. Hopefully she had better than that to come, "use rollout attack."

The ball of rock came rolling towards the umbreon, "Biohazard dodge!" Lilac called out, but he didn't move. He crouched down, preparing to jump. He was waiting for the last moment… When that moment came, he did the stupidest thing he could have done. Who would jump on a rolling geodude and run on it to stay on top?

As the geodude curved its path so as not to hit anything, Biohazard had no trouble staying on it. He winked at me, and his tail was wagging. An immortal would quickly get bored of such dangerous stunts, thus it must be a new thing for him, if he was actually immortal. There was no way his immortality wasn't a lie from him, or maybe from his sister. My tails wagged in anticipation for when the truth would come suddenly to him as a shock. Lilac was silent in anticipation of the same thing, though I could sense she was dreading the moment unlike me.

"Kitsune, I'd hate to ruin it for you but he's not going to get hurt," Katar whispered to me, still delusional that he could sense the future. I'd save bringing that up with him because I need the pleasure of his reaction, "I actually think he might be immortal, or at least he's going to have some extreme good luck."

"Geodude, speed up to get him off!" Roxanne called out, "that tactic he's using is against what his trainer called out and it is a stupid one too. Victory is ours as soon as he falls off."

"Biohazard, jump off!" Lilac screamed, breaking her silence.

"I'm immortal!" Biohazard barked in reply, "I'll just show you how harmless this geoude is to one such as me."

He stopped running. It only took a split second for the spin to throw him out in front of the rolling rock, and from it to run right over him with a crunch. I couldn't see any movement from him as he lay there. Was he dead? Possibly. The geodude was already turning to take another pass at him just in case.

Lilac lifted her hand holding his pokeball, tear running down her cheeks. Win or lose, she would never forgive herself if she had caused the death of a pokemon. She was soft like most good humans were, too soft to change the world. Something I had to change about her.

"Wait, I'm fine," Biohazard coughed, as he spontaneously got back on to his unsteady feet, "give me an order of how I should attack to win this, I don't think showing off is having the same effect it used to."

"Biohazard, quick attack," Lilac called out. Either she couldn't see that the umbreon was in pain or she had hardened up quite quickly.

His burst of speed was great considering his condition. He ran head on towards the geodude. Lilac was too new at fighting to know how this would end, and I couldn't just point it out, as Biohazard would assume it as a sign I liked him. His impacted against the rock shell of the geodude with his head, the momentum of his body pushed him forwards. Moving a rock isn't easy, and his force bent his neck at an uncomfortable angle before he bounced off. As he tumbled and bounced across the ground with every part of his body limp, the geodude came right for him. With its impact and rolling over him, I could see his neck get bent further than safe for one's health as well as his other limbs being twisted out of place.

It all happened too quickly for Lilac to call him back. It was too late for anything but to hope Nurse Joy could repair whatever damage had been done. Not like that seemed very likely either. As he finished tumbling it seemed everything had been knocked back into place, but that meant nothing about whatever damage was caused.

"Biohazard return."

He didn't live up to his name or being as powerful as Nurse Joy had said. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding. There would have to be. Could even humans be so stupid they would think he was actually powerful?

"Kitsune it's your turn," Lilac wiped her tears from her face, determined not to give up. She would not leave Biohazard's sacrifice in vain, though I was only doing this for her, "iron tail!"

I broke into a run, focusing my energy into my tails. I knew I was moving faster than Biohazard did when using quick attack, and the geodude didn't have time to get out of the way while it was still rolling. I pounced knowing it didn't have a chance.

As I went over it I gave it a full force hit with one of my tails, hearing the sound of rock shattering. I didn't need to look to know that blow alone had done enough damage that it wouldn't be able to do any harm. One of my other tails clipped it, putting a spin on it as it flew towards a large rock formation, shattering it upon hitting. Now to deliver a killing blow…

"Geodude return!" Roxanne called out, with the geodude dissolving into red energy before I could get to it. It wouldn't have been considered Lilac's fault or mine if I had gotten to it first. Lilac said the well being of a Pokémon was the trainer's responsibility, meaning it would have been the gym leaders fault. She wouldn't be quick enough with her next Pokémon.

Katar caught my eye. It looked like he was trying hard to resist saying something, "Just say it, what you say cannot influence the out come of the fight," I barked.

"Go Nosepass,"

"Well if I don't talk then you'll dodge Nosepass' zap cannon and kill it by hitting it with nine iron tails at once," he grinned, "Lilac would be quite upset by your accidental killing of it… But now I've told you it won't happen like that."

"Use Zap Cannon."

I turned back to the fight too late. I was engulfed in the thick burst of electricity, feeling the pain of it surge through me. The pain caused me to close my eyes too quickly to get a glance at my opponent. I felt my every muscle jerking as it fried my nerves far too effectively to be a normal electric attack.

"Rock Tomb."

I had to dodge whatever rock tomb was. It would only take a moment to focus my mind to break the paralysis, a trick that had saved my life more than once… too late. Pain struck me as it felt, and sounded like, like rocks had quick lunged out of the ground at me and had plunged into my flesh thus restricting my movement further.

"Finish this with body slam."

I had to focus. I was getting weaker by the second and I had to break the paralysis and the rock tomb to be able to fight back… I couldn't. I heard parts of the rock tomb shatter before I heard the sound of my joints cracking under the force. There was no pain. It was just over.

"Kitsune!" Lilac called out, as I lay there unable to feel anything below my neck, "you did your best Kitsune," her voice must have been closer, yet it seemed further away and was drifting away further…


	15. Gym battle Aftermath

**Chapter 15: Gym battle Aftermath**

_(From the perspective of Kitsune, the ninetales)_

My body was numb. I felt weak and tired. My eyelids were too heavy to open. I could barely move. What had happened? …I remember. I had been hit quite badly in a gym battle. Not just once, all three attacks had hit hard without giving me a chance to brace myself. How long had it been?

"Kitsune!" I heard the voice. A human female's voice, punctuated with sobbing, but it sounded familiar… Lilac, "I've should have never made you fight in that gym battle. You've been unconscious for more than a full day. Please wake up from whatever dream you're having, I don't think I could handle it if your twitching this time wasn't you starting to wake up. I failed as a pokémon trainer, but I don't want you to suffer because of it… You were too weak to have the operation to allow you to breath fire again. It's all my fault."

"I'm fine," hearing my own voice sounding much better than I felt, helped me regain some strength. I tried to stand up; the numbness had faded enough to feel that Lilac had just moved to avoid being in the way. It felt as if I was rocking side-to-side, unsteady on my feet. It was unacceptable to show such weakness. I tried to compensate, but all I managed to do was fall.

A giggle. She wasn't worried anymore. If I hadn't been told what sort of mental tampering she had been through, I would have probably ignored the mood change. 

"You need to rest, not try to be perfect the moment you wake up," Lilac stroked my fur, and then hugged me, "opening your eyes might also help a bit. We're on a boat again, so I can't blame you for falling over. Most people do when they aren't expecting the boat to sway. Just relax a bit. Too much stress will make your fur fall out."

I opened my eyes. Something was in-between my paws. It was small, yellow, with red cheeks, black ears, and black bent tail. A pichu… No, it didn't smell like one. I had to bite it to be sure my sense of smell wasn't deceiving me. No blood, no flavour of anything to suggest it was edible or was ever alive.

"I got you that while I went shopping with Ryan. A nice little toy for you," I finally looked at her. It would have been startling if I weren't aware of how humans wore clothing. She was no longer wearing pink. Her shirt was an aqua blue and her dress was a dark purple, "he thought it'd help you relax. He's been quite helpful, though he was a bit keen about getting us on a boat to Dewford. He couldn't battle against Roxanne because of how badly you hurt that geodude, and he wanted us to go with him to the next gym… I have no clue why he wants to keep us all so close to him."

Ryan wasn't stupid enough to let me get out of his watchful eye. With what I knew I could easily destroy him. He can't even afford to get rid of me because there is no telling who else I told… It was then I looked up at the room we were in. It was small, too small for comfort. The walls were just white, and the floor was too. It didn't feel like we were alone in the room, but I was too weak to try looking around.

"Whatever happened to Omega and that stupid absol who thinks he's psychic?" I asked chewing on the toy I had been given. There was a flash of yellow in the corner of my eye. My mind was probably playing tricks on me. Ignoring was the only option, "that absol made three predictions and all three times he was wrong. He must be feeling quite down upon realizing how useless he is…"

I remembered Biohazard, the umbreon who had fought before me in the gym battle. Why should I think of him? Why does it feel like his defeat was my fault? No one could have survived what he went through.

There was a creaking sound. It was an unnatural sound and thus most likely from a man-made object. Perhaps it was the door, but I wasn't facing in that direction. There was a movement in the air, and I could smell the presence of Ryan, yet there was also the smell of a pichu, though it was probably in my head again.

"I just came in to check on you two," Ryan's voice showed no angry, hatred, or fear as someone at the mercy of another should feel. How dare he act like I wasn't a threat, and even sound concerned? "Omega and Katar are both showing some improvement, and I've got Thorn to entertain Biohazard. That umbreon is too energetic for anyone else to handle. How much improvement is Kitsune showing?"

It couldn't be possible. I wanted to shout it out. He had to be dead. This whole thing had to be a dream if he was alive.

"Kitsune I forgot to mention what else happened while you were unconscious," Lilac seemed to ignore Ryan, just talking to me, "we found out why Biohazard got his name, more specifically I was a little slow on figuring it out so Katar found out first hand. Katar fell ill quite quickly and he's still recovering, though he wasn't too bad compared to you. I did make a little potion that'll make us all immune to such effects in the future but it takes a few days to build up the immune system. This was while you were recovering in your Pokéball, since with all the walking around we were doing it would have been inappropriate to have you out."

My Pokéball? …Yes, I had told her she could try if I failed the gym battle but I never expected to lose or for her to have the nerve to do such a thing. I don't feel bound to her will because of it. Still the ball may become quite an inconvenience if Lilac also develops the nerve to keep me in it.

"Omega, on the other hand, seemed fine till he got on this boat. I never thought he'd get sea sick, but it happened anyway. Ryan offered to take care of them, plus Biohazard so I could spend all my time with you. Quite nice of him, especially with how you'd pick on them if you got better first, and they'd do the same to you."

I felt another presence, apart from Ryan, Lilac, and hallucination of a pichu that now seemed to brush against my fur. I forced myself to turn towards Ryan and the door. A Skarmory stood silently behind him.

"Ah, so this is Kitsune. I thought you said she was supposed to be a good fighter?" it looked towards Ryan, whose face was turning red, then towards me with its cold, cruel eyes, "so, Ninetales, what happened? What made you ruin my chance of fighting in the gym battle and yet fail to get a gym badge yourself?"

"Thorn, what are you doing here?" Ryan seemed surprised and shocked at the skarmory's presence, "you're meant to be watching Biohazard!"

"He… um… knocked himself out on me," Thorn seemed to grin. Pokémon don't grin like that unless they learned it from a human, "just like you said he did against Roxanne's Geodude."

"We'd better check on Biohazard, I think he's hurt or something," Ryan spoke as he turned to the door, though Lilac got out first as she didn't waste time repeating what the skarmory had said, "Thorn you keep an eye on Kitsune. Do a better job than you did with Biohazard."

He closed the door behind him. I was alone with a pokémon I didn't know, while not being strong enough to fight back.

"It'll all your fault, you know," Thorn laughed, circling me, "I was looking forward to a good fight, but you got there first and ruined it. Then I got stuck with babysitter duty with that insane umbreon. He is the most annoying creature I have ever met, especially since it's so hard to get a hold of him to punish him. He was always going on about how he is immortal, nothing can touch him, claiming the fact he escaped the gym battle with only a few cuts and bruises. How can one faint and be removed from battle with so little injuries? He's your fault because if you were better he'd be annoying you instead of me…"

"Please, you really think you can make connections between events," I couldn't help myself; it would have made me seem too weak if I didn't, "you're clearly too stupid to think this through properly. You didn't get to fight a gym battle because Ryan was foolish enough to let me go first. You were stuck with Biohazard because Ryan is such a nice guy. Yet, it is really your fault more than Ryan's. It is you who allows yourself to be a slave to him. Also you are the only one with metal armour to protect yourself from Biohazard, thus it is your feathers fault too that you had to look after him."

"That's enough!" Thorn screeched, flapping his wings and chagrining at me. I was knocked over and he stood on my belly, rear end towards my face, talons digging in. The weight on one of them increased as he lifted the other one to grab one of my tails. He squeezed it tight, "time for you to suffer, I wonder why your kind protects your tails so much. I bet it hurts quite a lot when they are squeezed."

I wasn't strong enough to push him off. I tried to focus a thousand year curse for him to suffer but it didn't come. I felt like I was about to pass out from the pain. I actually got a glimpse of a pichu trembling in a corner of the room, frightened of the violent skarmory. The pichu began to spark…

The flash of electricity hit Thorn directly, and I felt it go through me as well, or more like just through my fur. I should have felt a shock too, but all I got was to see the skarmory stumble off me.

"Over here quick," I whispered to it, knowing now that it was real not an illusion. Why it was here wasn't important, "he'll kill you once he recovers."

The pichu ran, and the smell of fear was stronger now. Escaping an angry pokemon that'd eat it once it recovers by running to another pokemon with sharp teeth is probably scary. Not like my kind ever went through things like that, we are just superior and don't suffer like weaker species. I got back onto my feet as quick as I could, and with a small pounce, caught the pichu in my jaws. I let go and held it with my paws along with the toy one, just in time to hide it from Thorn.

"Who shocked me?" Thorn screamed, anger as was expected. Of course a mere pichu couldn't of done anything more than cause pain for him, "show yourself!"

"Hey," I could feel more energy coming back to me, not enough to put up a fight, but enough to make my tails wag. What I said next was more of a joke than a lie, though I couldn't tell why I would say it. It wasn't the time for jokes and it's not like I had any reason to protect the pichu, "I though Ryan told you about me. I can't breath fire but I can manipulate lightning."

"You're losing a tail now. You should have just fainted instead of trying to fight in your state," he jumping on me again, though this time I resisted being knocked over. I held to pichu tight, pushing on its chest only just enough to make it impossible for it to make a sound. A sudden pain in one of my tails came once again. It was different this time, it felt like a sawing sensation. It felt like there was also a hot liquid oozing over my fur around that tail. He was chewing my tail off.

The door creaked open again and Thorn let me go. There was a moment of shocked silence.

"Oh, uh, Ryan!" he tried to cough my fur out of his beak, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on Kitsu-is that blood on your beak? Thorn, did you bite Kitsune!" Ryan ran to me, looking all over me, not noticing I now had two pichu toys, before noticing one of my tails was what was injured.

"No, it wasn't like that. You see-"

"Thorn, you tried to bite her tail off! There's nothing else that you could have been doing besides that. Go get Lilac, I'll try to stop Kitsune from bleeding everywhere."

The real pichu tried to whimper as I tightened my grip on it to help deal with the pain of Ryan tending to my tail. It had already proven worth more than the toy one… No need to ask for its name, it'd only make me feel guilty since it'd only be a friend till I got hungry.

Till then, I had to keep my snack hidden from all others.


	16. Beginning a circle

**Chapter 16: Beginning a circle.**

_(From the perspective of the Pichu)_

I could feel electricity flowing through every wire of this human construction. Feel its progress to do tasks. It was like a sound too loud to block out, though it was uncomfortable once I had the chance to get used to it. I even could feel weaker electrical currents through it. The nervous system of any living creature is alive with electricity. For every movement made, a burst of electricity had to be sent from the brain to the muscles. And the brain was always alive with electricity; each thought a burst of energy. The complexity of it all was so much that it seemed impossible to understand, but still I was able to see basic concepts within a mind. My parents and siblings just never put the effort in to figure it out.

Changes were happening too quickly to be normal in the ninetales mind, emotions instantly being switched. Kitsune had gone from caring for my safety to think I was a toy. She held me tight for a while till the male human left, which was a little while after the female one arrived. It was then she started to toss me around, always catching me in her jaws before I hit the ground. I was never given the chance to escape.

I stopped struggling because of how hopeless it was but it was obvious why she wasn't eating me. I was too much fun for her while I struggled. Still I'd only survive so long, I needed to escape. I needed help from somebody. I had seen no pokemon here but the ninetales and the skarmory.

I had no one left to ask. Running from danger to danger had finally caught up with me. I had watched my family be killed and eaten by a family of delcatty while one of the skitty's of the family merely toyed with me because it wasn't hungry. I don't remember how I managed to escape that, but I must have done something terrible to it, as it was the only one who didn't chase me as I ran. I escaped them by getting onto this place that floats across water. If I stopped running then, and didn't search for a place to hide then I wouldn't have run into this ninetales.

It was a while before I saw anyone else to try to talk to. An absol staggered around later that day. It looked ill but I had to try. I let out a burst of electricity contain what I wanted to say, hoping it'd understand. Talking like other pokemon wasn't an option for me. Yet all I got for a response was the ninetales clenching her jaws round me, sinking them into my flesh and a yelp from the absol. It was ove—

Suddenly, there was a sound of a human voice, the female one. I couldn't understand the words but it seemed important, so I let my mind drift into focusing on her mind. Suddenly I understood what she was saying, "Kitsune! That's a live pichu! Put it down before you hurt the poor thing."

Amazingly the ninetales obeyed, and I fell to the ground. I did not run. Out there were many things that'd quickly make a meal of me. I just felt like screaming out in frustration with the universe. I let my electricity burst out everywhere.

"Um… I think the pichu is speaking telepathically," there was fear in the ninetales voice, a fear of her mind being open to me. Still she understood, and no one else did, "you didn't hear it did you, Lilac?"

"It just means you can understand electricity," it felt good to have someone to talk to after running so long. It was tiring talking though electricity but worth it, "you're the only one here I've seen who can."

"Pichu, let my human pick you up, it feels like the boat has stopped and you need to have your injuries treated," Kitsune's fear was gone now she knew how I did it. Still she was being nice all of a sudden, "I know the other trainer, Ryan, is probably rushing ahead as we speak to get the pokémon centre prepared for us."

I obeyed. There wasn't much choice. As the girl picked me up I forced my head into her chest to block out the sights and sounds of the world…

…It was all too soon that she put me down on a table. I looked around. It was another human building, presumably the pokémon centre. Beside me, but on the floor instead of on a table, was Kitsune with a bowl of strange round balls of food that humans often gave to pokémon.

"Here have a piece if you're hungry," Kitsune said, and I jumped down to the ground. I quickly grabbed a piece to eat. It was nice but there was something wrong with it. Something about the tone of voice Kitsune had used. I suddenly felt sleepy, and as I drifted off I hear one last thing from Kitsune, "I guess I'll have to eat it anyway if I want my tail to get better."

"The pichu is almost completely mute. It'll never be able to talk to other pokémon in the way they do. Don't worry it's not because of injury, it is merely a variation of the species that is sometimes seen. They only are able to communicate to other pokémon through electricity, usually this means only to electric pokémon, a few non-electric species, but there are the odd occurrence of other pokémon being sensitive enough to electrical fields too, and even one or two humans that can understand it. Since no one reported a lost pichu it is safe to assume this one is a feral one that happened to sneak onto the ship, so technically it's yours now."

I felt what was meant instead of the words themselves again. It was a human speaking, the human who gave Kitsune the food. It felt weirder this time hearing what she meant to say in my head, as I knew some of what I picked up was from before I had been woken up by her actual voice.

"I suppose I'll have to accept that," Lilac sighed. I was in her arms, and I had to look around. Sure enough the ninetales was close by with the bowl of uneaten food held in her jaws. Not that I blame her for not eating it, it was clearly tainted as it caused sleep, the problem was her reasons keeping it at all. "Come on Kitsune, we better meet with Ryan for dinner. By now he'll of thought of how to punish Thorn for injuring your tail."

It took no time to find the other human. There was a strange feeling about him now that I focused on him, but it didn't seem threatening, nor had I worked out what it meant. I didn't try to understand the two human's conversations from the moment Lilac put my down on the ground. How could anything they said of been more interesting than another talk with Kitsune?

"Why have you kept the tainted food?" I spoke through a jolt of electricity into her fur. There was the yelp of surprise from a mightyena, still Kitsune wouldn't let anyone hurt me so it wasn't worth paying much attention to that, "how do you intend to make it safe to eat?"

"I'll tell you if you do a little favour for me," she was suddenly right in my face baring her teeth and growling quietly, her tongue licking her white fangs. Some of the growling was from her stomach. It wasn't a favour she was really asking for. It was an alternative to being dinner that she was offering, "sneak as much of it as you can into the skarmory's meal."

Easy. I used to steal food without notice, so giving food should be just as easy. I picked up a piece in my food and turned to run with it to Thorn. It no longer seemed easy, everyone was watching, ready to spring to save me from Kitsune. I could not act when they were expecting something. At least not in the way I first hoped.

I dived back behind the bowl, and began pushing it towards the skarmory. It was hard work to move something that big, and certainly slow. No time to tell Kitsune what I expected from her. I had to rely on her to act how any carnivorous pokemon acted when its food was being stolen. I was not let down…

"Hey, that's my food!" she barked, as she pounced on me, picking me up in her jaws. It felt like she was really going to bite me in two for a moment, but I resisted panicking. She tossed me away. I was helpless in the air till there was the feel of metal talons grabbing me. It was quite a shock to me when I saw that Kitsune had her head in the bowl, slowly eating a little of the food. I then heard her mutter with her mouth full, "nobody steals my food, especially to try giving it to a sadistic skarmory. Next one to try it will feel the full force of my power… not like anyone would stay conscious long enough to see."

"You're still weak from your failing at Rustboro, so stop talking so tough. Maybe a night without dinner will kill your attitude. Nothing else seems to," Thorn laughed, as he held me. His grip tightened, though only because he was more focused on Kitsune than me. He leapt. Ramming Kitsune out of his way would probably have been easy anyway, but it was made easier by her muscles all relaxing at the last possible moment before impact. I could sense it, Thorn couldn't. He fell right into the trap and began scoffing the food. He had finished all of it before even starting to feel the effects.

"Thanks Lilac for teaching me that trick, it always carries the element of surprise," Kitsune yawned as the skarmory collapsed to the ground, with me barely able to struggle from its talons even when it was out cold. The tainted food had taken its toll. Kitsune slowly curled up on the ground, slowly dropping to sleep. Thus I was alone. No one else here could understand me. All I could do was listen, as the two humans came running to tend to the sleeping pokémon.

"Lilac," Ryan spoke, as he crouched down beside Thorn, "I understand Kitsune did this to get revenge, but I have a feeling she's planning something more. There must be something to do to allow us to have warning as to Kitsune's next move; it's difficult to know what to do. Perhaps leaving them both out of their balls would be best, if only we had something to make that safe for Thorn."

Yes, I could see the problem. Within a pokéball Thorn would be just as helpless as he was while in an induced sleep, with the difference he'd be easier to take to a place where the rest of the revenge would be harder to interfere with. Putting Kitsune in a pokéball wouldn't work either; it'd only take one of the pokémon here to let her out for her to implement whatever she had planned. And I knew of at least one pokémon that'd do it.

"Don't worry; I'm sure we can find a bell to tie to her neck. That'll make sure that we hear her whenever she tries to move. As long as one of us is a light enough sleeper to be woken by it everything will be fine. The more pokémon around, the more likely one will be woken… I'd prefer to have a locked room to put one in, but that isn't going to be a possibility so we'll have to manage with what we have."

So many other pokémon around, one of which would have to be safe to snuggle with through the night. There was a strange one with paint oozing from its tail approaching me. It was certainly smaller than most of the other pokémon around, and looked rather cheerful.

"Hi, want to be friends?" its voice had a tone of friendliness, matching its words. For it being willing to be friends with me was enough. I jumped at it and I was certain I was asleep before impact…

There was movement. I snapped awake. Even in the dark I could see the ninetales walking over to the skarmory, her tails wagging slowly with malicious intent. How did everyone else sleep while such emotion filled the air? A small bell tied round her neck sparkled in the low light though it remained silent, the reason for which was probably linked to its deformed shape and the fact there was a fading red glow to it.

I could do nothing but watch. I couldn't risk going against her, I would only live till I ceased being amusing for her. Still, there was no hate emanating from her, as if she would be willing to accept friendship once they were even. Nothing would change the fact she intended to make Thorn suffer and she was smart enough not to make it possible for anyone willing to interfere even know till after it was done.

A blue glow came off her tails as she sat beside him; the tails' movements seemed to become more controlled, less natural. The glow began to arc off the tails, swirling together into orbs of unnatural fire. There were only a few such orbs, but they grew. Each one became large enough to totally engulf me. A scary thought, even if the fox didn't intend to use them on me. One mistake could send one my way.

The orbs of fire floated down on to the skarmory's side. It didn't take long for the feathers to start to glow red, slowly melting— Whack! I didn't even see Kitsune prepare such an attack, but I saw it hit. One glowing white tail that splashed the partially melted metal around… Even if Kitsune was willing to be friends after this, I doubt Thorn ever will. It'll lead into a circle of vengeance, always growing stronger without end till one of the two is no more.


	17. Guest Written Chapter

_I did not write the following chapter, but instead it was written by a fan of this fic, who goes by the name of GoGoTenda. He sent this wonderful work and with me making a few adjustments to my plot, and him having to make a few adjustments to this work, I managed to fit it in. It's great to have things like this to fall back on when taking a break._

_Anyone who wants to submit things they want me to fit into this fic (Like GoGoTenda did) can email them to me at this address: Kawaii.kyuubi._

**_Chapter 17: Plots and Schemes_**

Bleary eyes opened and stared up towards the sky. The world around him was foggy, but it slowly regained its typical sharpness as the metal bird blinked a few times. His great beak opened in a yawn, and he stretched his wings. Or, just one of them. Rightly confused, Thorn attempted to move his stationary wing, but began to panic when he could not spread his feathers apart, "What's going on? Something is wrong…wait, are they melted together!" his voice rose in a mix of anger and yet more confusion. Such a thing had never happened to him, and he didn't remember when it might have occurred. Frantic, Thorn leapt to a standing position and desperately tried to move his left wing, which failed to move an inch. He squawked a few words that would have made other pokemon blush. After more failed attempts, Thorn's mind went to the next step: find Ryan. Thorn began to run through the rooms, looking for his trainer.

Ryan was lying on a simple bed, reading what appeared to be a trainer's magazine. His face was in fact red from hearing Thorn's outburst, but he had yet to notice the actual problem, "Thorn, you know saying those sorts of things aren't all that bright. Lilac could have understood you had she been in the room." Ryan turned a page and continued reading as Thorn stood beside him, dumbfounded. The trainer seemed to look past the paper for a moment, then reached for a new pokeball that was beside him. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This morning I went and got-"

"Ryan! You pathetic idiot of a trainer! Look at what someone did to my wing!" Thorn forced his left side into Ryan's line of sight.

Ryan seemed to study the damage for a minute before his jaw dropped slightly, "The whole wing is melted together. Doesn't that hurt? A lot?" Ryan began to question Thorn, pushing himself up from the bed and moving towards the door out of the room.

Knowing that Ryan would help now, Thorn began to relax, "Not really. I've been trying to move it, but it hasn't been hur-ARGH!" Ryan ran his finger down the length of the wing, causing Thorn's entire body to go rigid with pain. The skarmory's breathing became faster and louder, then gently slowed and returned to normal as the pain subsided, "that one hurt."

"Come on, Thorn. We should go talk to the Nurse," Ryan opened the door fully and allowed Thorn to enter the hall. Thorn ran down the hallway as Ryan closed the door and then followed at a reasonable clip. The bird skidded to a stop in the lobby area and headed for the Nurse's reception desk. Ryan was right behind him and hit the bell when he reached the desk itself. Within seconds, Nurse Joy had appeared while Thorn shifted anxiously the whole while, "um, miss? It looks like someone melted my Skarmory's wing. Is there anything we can do?"

"That's awful! Their feathers can get damaged from heat in battle, but this is a fairly severe case," Nurse Joy walked out from around the counter and kneeled next to Thorn. She gently tried to lift the wing from the body, watching Thorn's face as he fought to contain a shriek, "this had to be intentional…but yes, I can treat this. There's a fairly simple operation but, unfortunately, it isn't free," Ryan nodded, and Thorn pulled his wing from the woman's fingers, "if you'd like, I can give you an estimate…?"

"No, that's okay. Just please go ahead and do the operation. I'll be able to pay in full." Ryan smiled timidly, which was returned by Joy. She motioned for them to follow into a back room, and they obeyed. Thorn was helped onto an operating table, lying on his stomach with his mangled wing easily accessible. Joy explained the basics of the procedure and recommended that Ryan allowed Thorn to be put under. Thorn gave Ryan a look that said that he would prefer it to be pain-free, and Ryan agreed to an anesthetic. As Thorn felt his eyelids begin to droop, he felt Ryan's hand on the top of his head and faintly heard a few words which he assumed to be comforting. Then, everything was as black as night.

He was out of the operating room in the same day, but with a large amount of cloth bandage around his newly reformed wing. After taking a short nap to combat the aftereffects of the pain killer, Thorn was brought a few pieces of fruit by Ryan (who refused to let Thorn know how much the operation had cost). He tried to listen as Ryan explained what was going to happen the rest of the day, but zoned in and out. What Ryan really said was as follows:

"Thorn, I'm going to leave you here with pretty much all the other pokemon with us right now. Lilac, Bug, and I are going into town to buy a few things and so I can get the badge from the Dewford Gym. We shouldn't be gone all that long; the battle will be quick and shopping should be short. Sketch will be here in case you need anything, and so will someone else. I was about to tell you this morning before I noticed what was wrong. Anyway, this morning I went and had Cinder transferred from Elm's to the Center. I thought that Cinder would really like to be with us instead of at the Lab, and he agreed whole-heartedly. He's in charge while I'm gone, so listen to him. Otherwise, just try to rest so you can heal. It's okay if you aren't in battle shape for Slateport, but we could use our ace at Fortree. Sleep well, Thorn," after stroking the Skarmory's beak a few times, Ryan was off to the gym with Lilac and Bug in tow. Almost immediately, Thorn fell asleep.

"Hey, Thorn, how are you doing?" the Skarmory's eyes opened and were greeted with an actually welcome sight. A large Typhlosion, naturally imposing, was smiling down at him with the most un-fearsome expression possible. Thorn managed a tiny laugh while still under the effects of the drug, "heh heh…Hi there, Cinder," Cinder chuckled and sat down next to the metal bird, sending small vibrations through the ground. The vibrations caused Thorn's free wing shake slightly, and his feathers made a sound like windchimes, "so, that ninetales go the best of you, huh? Well, you did try to bite her tail off…all's fair in love and war, I suppose."

"It was not war, and it definitely isn't love. She's a demon in fox's clothing, perhaps the very epitome of evil."

"Aw, Thorn has a girlfriend," Cinder reached over and punched Thorn gently in the shoulder, drawing his hand back quickly when Thorn playfully snapped at him, "ooh, I might just lose a finger from the love bird," they laughed a bit, but Thorn stopped and winced when his wing start to hurt.

"What did Ryan tell you so far? You obviously already know what happened today," Thorn grimaced and fought back the pain that threatened to bring him to tears.

"Well, he told me why we're here. He also told me everything he knew about Lilac and her pokemon. Like, he told me that that Biohazard would probably do something idiotic within seconds of them leaving. The umbreon did so, and is now lying in a peaceful sleep with Sketch and the pichu nearby. Katar said some thoroughly uninteresting premonition type things before running off. I believe Omega is with him, and Kitsune is down there with Sketch as well. Probably still recovering from what you did to her, she is. Ryan said he was going to the gym with Lilac and Bug, and that they would be gone for awhile because of a few things Lilac wanted to pick u,." Thorn sighed as Cinder confirmed his fear that the two trainers really were too far away to help in case things got bad. Sensing this and that Thorn still needed rest, Cinder stood up to leave, "I'm going to go make sure that Sketch and the pichu are alright. We don't need anymore injuries, do we?" with that, the typhlosion walked a little ways away and down the side of a hill. Apparently, Ryan had left Thorn on top of a small hill so that he would be able to watch what was going on without being close enough to be disturbed. There was also a gentle breeze that carried the scent of all the pokemon down below.

Cinder reached the clearing where most of the others were gathered. Sketch and the pichu, whom Sketch had begun a habit of calling "Chu Chu", were rolling across the grass as Sketch laughed childishly. Though the Pichu couldn't emulate the sound, happiness was evident in the way it moved and smiled. Shifting his gaze to Biohazard, Cinder sighed and then moved on to someone less asleep. Kitsune was watching him with one eye, apparently trying to rest still. Hoping to start things off well with the fox, Cinder spoke, "I'm sorry about what Thorn did to you. Sometimes, he just gets really carried away. He won't bother you now that you melted his feathers together."

The large pokemon turned his head and caught Sketch's eyes with his own. As the smeargle smiled broadly and broke away from Chu, Cinder charged and gave a mock roar. He caught Sketch's legs with his arms and lifted the smeargle into the air and then held him so that Sketch dangled behind him. Sketch was laughing wildly with excitement, thrilled to be able to play with Cinder again. Eventually, Cinder gently dropped Sketch, who landed gracefully and then charged the typhlosion. He wrapped his arms around the bulk before him and pushed with all his might. After a minute or so, Sketch collapsed at Cinder's feet, panting heavily; Cinder had yet to move or even break a sweat. "Good try, Sketch. You'll get there eventually," Chu had been standing off to the side, watching the two roughhouse. Sketch staggered to his feet and then rushed Chu, who let out a tiny charge in surprise before turning tail and leading Sketch away.

Over near Kitsune, a lone figure stepped out of the bushes. It was Katar, and he held a vaguely unnerving air about him. Cinder was suspicious of the absol, his motives, and his intent. Katar bent to speak into Kitsune's ear, and both her eyes opened in apparent surprise. Katar smiled a devil's smile and darted off the way he had come. Kitsune quickly stood and followed after him with great speed; she would not let her reputation be falsely destroyed. Cinder watched them go without any idea of what Katar had said, but he assumed that it was really nothing to worry about and went back to watching Sketch and Chu.

In a few minutes, Omega burst from the way Kitsune had went with an apparently frantic look, "Hurry, come quick! I saw Kitsune with a whole bunch of Sketch's stuff. I didn't like the look in her eye either, I think she's jealous," Cinder raised an eyebrow, but heard Sketch break from his mock fight with Chu and scamper over to where Omega stood. The dog was shifting as if nervous, or with excitement.

Chu ran over to stand next to Sketch, who looked at Omega and spoke, "Show me where!" There was a tone of anger in Sketch's voice that Cinder had heard only on a few occasions. _Wait, I thought Ryan said that Sketch was afraid of Omega? He must be really upset to override something like that. _ Omega was visibly startled at Sketch's defiance of fear, but began to run deeper into the wood nonetheless. It didn't take long before they found what Omega had been talking about. Kitsune was standing over a number of Sketch's paintings, and all of them were ablaze.

"Oh, crap," were the only words Cinder could think of.

Kitsune turned to look at the crowd and attempted to explain, "this wasn't me. Katar said I would be framed, and I had to protect my reputa-" Sketch was already running towards with a shout of pure rage. Quickly, Cinder lunged and managed to grab Sketch by the scruff. Thinking that Sketch was disabled, Cinder almost toppled over when the smeargle began to drag him towards Kitsune.

Cinder shouted, "Omega! Grab him or something! He's going to tear her apart!" Omega hesitated before pouncing on Sketch, knocking him to the ground. Cinder's grip broke, and Sketch began to roll through the dirt with Omega on top of him. For the first time that he could remember, Cinder was watching Sketch actually snarl at another Pokemon, and then heard a yelp which he thought to be Omega's. The dust finally settled, and Omega was holding Sketch down with his teeth on the back of the Smeargle's neck, "good you got him…wait, are you bleeding, Omega?" a tiny trickle of red was running down Omega's right leg. Sketch was still struggling slightly, but stopped completely when he felt Omega nibbling the back of his neck.

"Kitsune, do you know what could have happened? If Omega hadn't attacked Sketch, you could have lost your head. Quite literally, in fact. Why would you destroy his paintings?" at that last phrase, Sketch struggled angrily against Omega's weight, but failed to free himself.

"I told you, I didn't. Katar said I was going to be framed, so I came here to stop that from happening," Kitsune stepped away from the smoldering remains of the paintings, and Omega shifted uncomfortably, "it had to be Katar. He would have made his own prediction come true by setting this up."

"If you were going to be framed, why did you follow him instead of staying where you were? We can't be sure if any of what you said was true. You could just be blaming Katar for what you did, using him as a convenient scapegoat just because he isn't around," Cinder realized what he was saying, and was startled when he realized just how absent the absol was. _Kitsune might be telling the truth. The real criminal secrets himself away while setting up someone at least a little more innocent to take the blame…_

"Of course I'm here. I'm always around where there's trouble," Katar's voice spoke from above them, yawning slightly. The absol was perched on a tree branch, watching the group with half-interest, "Kitsune, I only told you what you'd end up saying. It doesn't change whether you burned the paintings or not. I can't get visions of the non-living."

It was then that Sketch twisted his neck suddenly and clamped his teeth into Omega's forepaw. The Mightyena yowled and released his grip on the Smeargle's neck. Sketch wriggled out from under him and then charged at Kitsune. His hands glowed before they elongated into shining blades of light: the guillotine attack. Cinder remembered the day that Sketch had learned the attack, which Ryan basically forbid to be used. A trainer had called out a Pinsir while Sketch was battling for Ryan. Predicting an attack completely different, Ryan had told Sketch to imprint the next move with the Smeargle signature attack. When the Pinsir used and failed to hit with guillotine, Sketch automatically used Sketch (the attack) in response. And now he was using the deadly move against Kitsune. Sketch swung his right arm towards Kitsune's throat when Omega blurted out "It wasn't her! It was Katar…and me. But mostly Katar, because he's the one who thought of this whole plan. Kitsune is innocent," Sketch had stopped his attack mid-swing, the very tip of the blade lightly touching Kitsune's neck. A single drop of red ran down the blade and fell to the ground. The guillotine disappeared and Sketch collapsed to the ground, panting.

"Omega! It was just about to get good, and you had to go and tell everyone the truth," Katar leapt from the tree branch and landed gracefully on the ground, immediately next to Cinder. Cinder growled at him, but Katar merely stepped a little away from the typhlosion and otherwise ignored the threat. The exhausted Sketch looked at him with a tired anger that manifested itself in tiny cross hairs in his eyes. Katar noticed them and knew what they were: Lock-On. Immediately, wind began to whirl around the area, gathering at a spot in front of Katar. Sketch lifted a hand and directed it at the Absol, muttering "Sheer Cold", while Katar swiped the blade on his head forward in response.

In a flash, Kitsune had leapt onto Sketch and completely enveloped him and herself with her tails. Each tail was glowing with the power of Iron Tail. Katar's Razor Wind whipped towards them, slamming into Kitsune's shield and then continuing around it. Cinder grabbed Chu in his arms and turned his back to the weakened but still powerful wind. Omega tumbled a bit before managing to stand up against the force, and even Cinder was moved a few inches. When the huge amount of dust that had been stirred had settled, nothing remained of Katar except a chunk of ice where he had been standing last.

Kitsune stepped off of Sketch, who stood shakily and threw his arms around his protector. There was a sobbing sound, and Kitsune felt the strange feeling of water against her perfect fur. There was also a sort of aching from one of her tails. She turned her head to look, and saw the damage that Katar had caused. The one tail that Thorn had injured was bleeding because it wasn't able to use Iron Tail completely. Cinder made sure Chu was still with him and then walked to where Kitsune and Sketch were. Omega followed with his head and tail bowed a little, "Is everyone okay, at least for the most part?" Cinder had noticed Kitsune's tail and gave her an apologetic look before touching it with one finger. The tail pulled away and Kitsune tried not to growl in response to the pain, "Kitsune, we can't go to the pokecenter for this because we don't have a trainer. You or I could cauterize it, or we can look for something to put on it. Otherwise, I think we'll have to wait for Ryan and Lilac to return."

Thorn sighed. It had been a while since Cinder had left, and nothing exciting had happened. A lone Zigzagoon had wandered up to the hill, but had frozen when it noticed Thorn. After a few minutes of the Zigzagoon standing motionless, it had decided that Thorn was not a threat, and had continued on its way. I_Not a threat. What a fool. If I wasn't hurt, he would have gone running home instead that little prancing walk thing it did. _ Thorn snorted as he remembered the incident, then turned his thoughts elsewhere. _This injury Kitsune caused has made me miss yet another Gym, and I probably won't be needed in Slateport either. I'll need to find a way to pay her back for this…but how? That pichu seems to be some sort of plaything to her, but is far too important when compared to prey that any predator would play with. I could tell her that we'd be even if she promises to leave the pichu alone and just let me take it from her. Or I could always try to get close to Lilac; I can tell how much that'd make Kitsune squirm. There's always the plan for me to get both her and Cinder at the same time. Kitsune for obvious reasons, and Cinder because of that love crack. We'll see who's in love once I enact my revenge. _Thorn laughed a sort of evil laugh, then laid his head down and chuckled himself to sleep.


	18. Kitsune: Good or Evil Part One

**Chapter 18: Kitsune: Good or Evil? Part One**  
_I shouldn't have done it. Lilac was the only one who has ever been nice to me my whole life, and now I've attacked Kitsune she'll never accept me… But I had to of done something, if I didn't that smeargle would of killed me. That I a certain of, my visions are always accurate unless I play a part in changing the results. I just cannot see the results of my interference till I actually interfere— If only I could have had time to think of some other way to save myself._

Katar ran. There was nothing else to do. His white fur shimmered as the wind buffered against it, though the illusion of this wind was caused by his speed. To him it seemed like he was running against the wind when he knew he was running with it. Jumping from tree to tree, he did his best to combine speed with a lack of a trail that'd allow him to be tracked. It was not long before he stopped.

"They are not following," puffing with exhaustion he mumbled to himself, "or at least will not harm me if they are. Some times I wish I could see the full future not just the truly bad parts. I am alone but I do not see a period of painful loneliness, perhaps I will be happy with being alone."

"Or perhaps you will not stay alone for long," a voice spoke from behind him, "we both have a lot in common, we both see the future for one thing. The only problem with us becoming is that I'm a representation of all that is good and see only the miracles of the future, while you are evil and see only the bad. Alas, I can still not bear to let you be alone, thus you could not see it happening. I blame my good nature for making my want to befriend you and most likely give you a chance to betray me in the near future…"

Katar turned to see the beautiful golden fur of a ninetales. There was a fading golden glow around it, as well as the fading figures of various unown around the ninetales. It was in the eyes that the flaw was; their blackness was so deep they seemed to try grasping at one's soul to tear it away.

"Most would say you're far more evil than I could ever be," Katar hissed, "going around to all sorts of wondrous events and trying to take credit is not good. Plus you've enslaved quite a few unown to enhance your abilities, temporarily banishing them to some empty plane of existence when you're not using them. Really, Huxian, you are more of a freak than a hero. At least my species all see the futu—"

"Correction, your kind is usually just drawn to where disasters are about to happen, not see it in detail before hand. I know because I asked a few other absols since we last left and asked them about it. Still I understand your mistake since that witch who used to own you never let you meet any of your own kind," Huxian's nine tails wagged in pleasure at Katar's reaction of surprise to him referring to that lady as a witch. "Yes, that assassin is really a witch. It's what they call evil humans with supernatural abilities, as far as I know, even if it's just the ability to live over five hundred years without aging like she has. Not like you actually have been alive long enough to realize her age, but I certainly have."

"Enough talk, lets just get down to why you're here. You came to me because of how miraculous it is for me to actually be desperate for company, thus came to rub it in my face, though that alone wouldn't have brought you so far. You've come because you've some how heard of this hot white vixen with ninetales that is into violence, exactly the type you love. Too bad I can feel that she's going to bring some all mighty destructive event, something you certainly wouldn't like, good or not."

"There are two beautiful white ninetales here? I could only sense the one who's to bring something of inexplicable wonder to the world, something not even I can even comprehend," Huxian stared at Katar, a few unown appeared around him and glowed for a moment, "there is only one, isn't there? It's as if she has the potential to do both, it'd probably mean we will have to compete to get her to turn to our side."

"Actually, why not work together?" Katar whimpered as he took a few steps back, "I may be all for comprehendible destruction, but I'm not for incomprehensible destruction as it might include my death. Neither does competing with you sound like a good plan, since last time you broke all four of my legs with a single glance when I'm meant to be immune to being telekinetically crushed like that. Trust me; you need my ability to make sure you don't just make things worse."

"Are you sure this will work?"

Some time had passed and a plan had been formed (after discussing old times and what they have been up to since). It was a cautious plan of just observing the full situation before thinking of anything else, but a plan none the less. The ninetales and absol walked with many unown floating around them releasing a golden glow that surrounded them… at least from their perspective.

"It has never failed me before so why do you doubt me?" Huxian glared at Katar as they walked, "you're the evil one not me. The unown will make it seem like we are not here. No being will be able to smell, hear or see us as long as the barrier is up. My powers are flawless."

It was not long before a mightyena came into sight, laying down in the grass, his ears as limp as his tail, "Why could I not let Kitsune take the blame? I want her dead but I couldn't let it happen. Now I have to live with my punishment…"

"Let's test your barrier then," Katar growled, walking towards Omega, even when he walked straight into Omega's line of sight there was no reaction, "so far so good."

"Yay! Katar's back with a ninetales friend!" a voice cried out from off to one side, turning Katar saw it was the umbreon Biohazard. He also noticed Omega jumping to his feet looking wildly around.

"Where?" Omega yelped, seeming to look right through Katar, "are you sure he's here? Catching him seems to be the only way to get on Sketch's good side after what happened. Another ninetales would explain how Katar lit Sketch's stuff on fire for sure, but I don't see either of them."

"You're looking right at them, but since you seem to be blind at the moment I'll deal with them myself. It'll please Kitsune," Biohazard barked as he began to charge right at Huxian and Katar. Katar leapt easily out of the way, but wasn't looking to see how Huxian did. There was a thump as Biohazard continued to run straight into a tree.

_I didn't need to see it to know Huxian only barely dodged that attack._

"There is nothing there…" Omega sighed, "Thorn was right you do have eye sight problems."

"It's impossible," the ninetales panted, "it is far more likely he was hallucinating that we are here than actually seeing us. He almost hit me too; the unown couldn't deflect him, as was my first instinct to try either. Leaping out of the way lacks the elegance I try to hold at all times. Now let's continue to where the ninetales is, the one whom I shall have no matter what… I sense you are a little smug all of a sudden, who's going to get killed this time?"

"It is no one worth saving. I'll be sure to watch of course, but you need not worry yourself as it is no one Kisune actually knows. Thus attempting a rescue wouldn't help your chances much."

It was easy from there; no one else seemed able to see them as they went to the pokemon centre where they both felt the presence of the white ninetales. Walking in was easy.

"It seems Kitsune is in a private recovery room, I'm sure you know why," Huxian growled at Katar, baring his white fangs, "I thought you'd be telling me everything, yet you never mentioned this— I'm glad you're not disappointing me by actually being good. Still, you need to work on a bigger betrayal than this if we are to stay rivals."

"Kitsune was attacked for destroying some artwork that had nothing more than sentimental value. She's lucky to be alive, saved only because some stupid mutt wanted to take some of the blame… Look, there's Cinder waiting outside the surgery door. He's the typhlosion if you didn't know, and the smaller pokemon are waiting with him."

The typhlosion lay curled up on the floor with a smeargle and a pichu snuggled into his fur. All three looked sad; tears were in the eyes of the smaller pokemon, while Cinder looked to be doing his best to push some guilt out of his mind. On the other side of the room stood a large Skarmory, staring at the ground mumbling to itself while looking quite annoyed.

"Sorry, I'm about to show off. I can't help it in these circumstances as it's such a miracle," Huxian barked loudly, though no one around looked in their direction, "if there is no interference then this Kitsune and Cinder will fall in love with each other, developing into a closer relationship than is usually acceptable between different species as long as neither of us interfere."

"Yet the relationship break apart into hatred when Cinder finds out it was all just a part of Thorn's plot for revenge," Katar added, noting Huxian's stunned glare at him, "I told you my powers are going to be useful. You could even tell that the relationship will be a set up; I know it doesn't change anything as you were going to try stealing Kitsune away no matter what, thus ruining the relationship. Just wait before doing anything stupid, we might get a better idea of what'd do the most damage"

It was then two shadows of humans, as well as the shadow of some floating object, appeared outside the pokemon center door, though they did not enter straight away.

"They are talking," the ninetales said then paused for a few moments, his tails perking up and wagging as viciously as Kitsune's would of when toying with a meal, "I think I know what to do. It seems there is another unown to add to my collection out there, and it knows that a ninetales is about with many enslaved unown (I guess I slipped up and it sensed me for a moment), both are quite worried about it and suspect Kitsune already… Odd that they call it Bug and refer to it dragging them out of a gym battle to get to the bottom of what happened. The plan is you open the door of the recovery room while I create a blur to make it look like some super speed is involved; at the same time I snatch the new addition to my collection. They should come to the conclusion that Kitsune did it, thus drive her away, leaving her no one to stay with but me. Now tell me, any bad results from doing it, for example them harming her before she escapes?"

"Nope, let's get to work."

No plan could go as smoothly, a simple button operated door that Katar jumped at and pushed the button to open, much to the surprise of all the pokemon who couldn't see what happened. Huxian did his part well, and Katar only caught a quick glimpse of the unown, barely seeing it was of the 'F' variety before it was caught in the golden glow and faded away into wherever the ninetales kept unown that weren't in use. Both Katar and Huxian ran out the door before it closed, thus not risking raising suspicions.

"We better keep moving at a steady pace," Katar hissed, "we just stole a pokemon of Ryan's, and I've seen what that little smeargle of his does to those who annoy it… The girl with him, Lilac, would be a problem though. Good thing we aren't going to be caught."

Taking an opportunity while Huxian wasn't looking, Katar sliced one of his front legs with his head blade. It wasn't long till blood trickled down his leg, leaving the occasional drop of blood on the ground. They continued walking away from the pokemon centre and deep into the Dewford Island wilderness.

It seemed like a lifetime of walking in silence before Huxian stumbled and fell to the ground, barely managing to get up again. "What's happening? Why am I feeling ill?" He whimpered with the fear of uncertainty, "I can't sense any cause, so why?"

"You're starting to feel the effects of the poison," Katar tried to laugh, but only managed a nervous giggle, "I never told you everything. Perhaps if I told you I could feel that Biohazard managed to touch you and his toxic sweat is capable of being absorbed through the skin unlike the sweat of other umbreons, but that'd of ruined what little faith you have in the forces of evil. I'm sorry old friend but I had to betray you because you expected it of me. Without help you'll be dead in a few hours, but too weak to struggle back to the pokemon center in less than fifteen minutes."

"My powers are meant to leave me immune to poisons… What is Biohazard really? How can he see through my special barrier and produce a toxin magic can't combat or even sense?" Huxian stumbled once more, and then stood glaring at Katar, with his nine tales standing erect, "at least I can take you with me, and then secure all my unown so they can't escape just incase I recover despite what you said… It might happen because I sense a great miracle coming."

Katar's body was lifted from the ground, surrounded by a golden glow.

"Now our rivalry ends with your death," Huxian's attempt at an evil laugh was far better than what Katar managed earlier.

_I do not see my death, I only sense only the destructive energies of Kitsune coming to me. Good saves good, evil saves evil. I'm right and he's wrong. I wish this didn't mean Kitsune was going to do something worse than destroy the whole world._


	19. Kitsune: Good or Evil Part Two

**Chapter 19: Kitsune: Good or Evil? Part Two**  
_Injured again. Is this new path I have chosen really so different that I am no longer able to take care of myself? Things are falling apart so soon, it looks like my plans will go nowhere. A few unknown variables have knocked everything off course, but I mustn't let myself feel depressed about it. I no longer have the option of turning back, it was lost as soon as I failed the gym battle and was weakened enough to be caught in a pokeball, the only choice is to go forwards, hoping to find a way around the problem._

Kitsune lay alone in the pokemon centre; her eyes were closed as she lay in a private recovery room, but she was anything but asleep. While her tails lay limp because of both her mood and the fact one of them hurt to move, her ears were up and twitching. It felt like her ears were hearing something but the message wasn't reaching her mind to be perceived. Kitsune's jaws clenched and she bared her fangs and growled slightly. It wasn't just Thorn outside the recovery room that wished harm would come to her.

The sound of the recovery room door sliding open made Kitsune's eyes spring open, perceiving nothing more than a blur of movement— no, there was a feeling that the sight wasn't coming from her eyes, more being forced into her mind. An illusion. A good one at that. The door slid shut after a few seconds of what seemed liked shocked silence.

_No point acting too hastily, I'm not in the best shape after losing so much blood, thus waiting to learn more is the best action._

"Bug's gone!" Kitsune could hear Ryan clearly through the door, even if he wasn't shouting in shock she would have heard, it would have just required more focus. Kitsune closed her eyes again and concentrated on not missing any part of what was being said. Ryan's voice turned to a sob, "He said he sensed a ninetales forcing a group of unown into serving it without question… I hoped it wasn't Kitsune doing it, but I should't have led Bug here, right into a trap."

"Kitsune's taken Bug!" Thorn screeched out, his rage seeming to vibrate every wall. Then there was silence, or at least the sound of some of them being quiet as if trying to plan without talking for fear of being over heard. They were clearly not stupid, even if they had already misunderstood the situation; they were doing their best not to under estimate her. Though by the sound of metal claws gently rubbing against paper and the occasional non-committal grunt from what sounded like Cinder, it seemed like the planning was being done by the Skarmory with Cinder being the only one even slightly interested in whatever plan was being made.

"Kitsune wouldn't have done it," Sketch was one of the exceptions; he still thought the best of her. Kitsune's tails almost started wagging at the thought of how much optimism in others was too much, and how Sketch was clearly beyond that point. He must have lived a very sheltered life. He was actually crying, "She's not bad, she's… she's… only hurt Thorn for damaging her beauty. She can't be punished for that and her bad luck."

_Yes, it is odd how I seem to be having a run of bad luck._

"Sketch does have a point," Ryan seemed to also want to break the lack of talking. Lilac would have had to be with him, but why hadn't she said anything? "Glitch would point out how my bringing of Bug directly to Kitsune after he sensed what was happening was such a logical action that it could of easily been predicted and a trap been set here to catch Bug. Kitsune may just of been unlucky that we'd come to her fir—"

Ryan had stopped mid-sentence as the recovery room door open once more, and Cinder leapt through and at Kitsune, though he did not look overly aggressive. She merely shifted her front paws under herself as if about to jump out of the way. She didn't dodge. Cinder landed on her, knocking her over on to her side, though positioned most of his weight on the bed around her, instead of her, while biting into her neck. His teeth only touched the skin of her neck and how he held her he seemed to be expecting very little struggle, showing that he didn't want to use any more force than was necessary. He was treating Kitsune like she was a normal delicate ninetales. She pretending to struggle a bit, probing the weak spots of his hold more than testing his strength. He grinned, showing that he felt he had won and had no idea that his hold on her was worse than nothing. It only made her seem helpless.

"Now you're going to tell us what you did with Bug!" Thorn screeched while entering the room, though it quickly turned to a laugh as he leapt at her, raising one leg up towards her underbelly as she lay. She could feel his talons touching her fur as a threat. "Let's see how much I have to rip out of you before you talk."

"Sketch you really shouldn't watch—" Omega's voice spoke, and there were a few whimpers of terror from sketch as there was the sound of him being pushed to the ground.

It was all too easy. Kitsune's tails flashed instantly to glowing bright white as she slipped out from under Cinder, pushing him off the bed, and she spun around. As she turned she felt a brief bit of resistance on one tail for an instant, and even though using iron tail made them all numb, Kitsune was sure the only thing she could of hit was Cinder with a tip of a tail. It would certainly cut his flesh. She continued to spin, whacking Thorn's damaged wing with as many of her tailing as possible and as hard as she could manage.

There was no time to look to see what damage she had caused, and she used her hind legs to propel her towards the door as soon as she was facing that direction. She was mid-air before she saw Omega was holding Sketch to the ground in the doorway. One swish of her tails, with the white glow quickly fading, moved her trajectory so as she knocked Omega off Sketch and used him for her next bound, hearing a sound much like him choking on something as she did so. The only other thing she noticed on her way out of the pokemon centre was Biohazard unconscious on the ground outside and a trail of drag marks showing for certain he was dragged to the pokemon centre.

_They won't underestimate me again. I doubt I would have stood a chance, even just against Thorn, if I hadn't completely caught them off guard. I feel so weak because of my tail injury. If it weren't for that, I'd stay and talk to them about what's happening and that I didn't do it._

Something caught Kitsune's eye, a spot of red. She turned towards it and continued to run; feeling lighter headed every moment. Once closer it triggered an instinct within her mind. The instinct said to her, "You are weak and need food, there are drops of blood leading a trail towards injured prey," alas without anywhere else to turn to sort out the problems she had, she just gave into the instinct without a fight and followed the trail. It felt bad to be going after prey when there were more important things to deal with and Kitsune put down the lack of a scent on the tail of blood drops to the blood loss.

She snapped out of her instincts managing her every thought. She saw Katar floating in the air and heard him screaming in pain, though the screams quickly subsided, as he seemed to lose consciousness. A golden glow surrounded him and it linked to the golden glow of a ninetales surrounded by floating black objects that reminded Kitsune of some of the symbols humans use, though they also all had one large eye each.

It was too hard to think clearly, and she just charged at the other ninetales, "Katar is mine!" she growled as she head butted him, disrupting his hold on Katar. "I cannot let him die till I've gotten pay back for him framing me. Tell me what makes your claim of a need for vengeance against him greater than mine or be gone."

"My lovely Kitsune, it is good to finally meet you, you may call me Huxian," the other ninetales coughed some blood while he tried to be as charming as he could and stand up. "Katar here is a long time arch-nemesis, though I never expected him to stoop so low as to promise to help me and then lead me away from all possible medical attention when he knew I was poisoned and didn't know it. My claim is quite strong, and death is the only punis—"

"He sliced a wound open on one of my tails and then proceded to drain blood out through it. You can see the injury…" Kitsune barked, turning her side towards Huxain and for the first time she noticed the white bandage wrapped around the wound. "…Okay, you can't see it, but still you should know something's come above life and death for our kind. Katar is rightfully mine."

"My unown slaves can heal that injury…" Huxian spoke, though his voice started to fall weak as the realization of what he was probably letting Kitsune know dawned on him. Still he continued on talking, merely starting to take a few cautious steps backwards, stumbling because of the toxin, his tails limp and his ears flat. "Yes, I was behind taking that unown from that human at the pokemon cen—"

It was too late for talk. Kitsune was already literally at his throat, about to bite it with full intentions of ripping it out. A flash of golden light knocked her back, then slowly lifted her into the air.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to seal them away now. It'll only take a few moments," Huxain sighed, using the unowns' powers to levitate Kitsune and move her around a bit so he could inspect her every detail as the unown around him slowly faded with a very sad look in their eyes. "Katar says the toxin that is within me will kill me soon, but I can always hope that he is wrong. While weakened I am likely to lose my control over my servants if I don't seal them away somewhere they cannot escape… If I die they'll spend all eternity in an inescapable empty world. I wish that you'd help tend to my need while I'm ill so that I can teach you to exploit this power once I recover. It took me nine hundred years, but I'm sure I can teach you in much less as I had to learn with no help."

Kitsune's tails started wagging. "I've never met anyone so pathetic. You must have come all this way just to try wooing me, yet I'm not even a hundred years old yet. You've wasted your life as you've clearly missed all the chances of love in your life, plus nothing is impressive about having slaves do all your work. It actually looks quite easy to do and much easier for me to manipulate. The fact that you can't even use them to manipulate love adds to how inferior you are… I'm glad our species won't have to put up with you for too much longer, you're too much of an embarrassment."

Kitsune's fur started to puff out and glow a pale blue that, though the golden glow of Huxian was much a stronger colour, it seemed to be unable to hold around Kitsune's and the blue glow quickly spread. A sudden burst knocked Huxain backwards into a nearby tree, and Kitsune collapsed on to the ground. The blue glow intensified and suddenly the black forms of the unown started to appear all around them. Though the blue glow, nor a golden one, did not cover these as they were not under Kitsune's power or Huxian's.

"I'll deliver a killing blow to Huxian," Katar spoke, and somehow Kitsune wasn't surprised he was conscious, "he's more of a friend than a nemesis and I don't want him to suffer. I'm sure I can do it without damaging his pelt at all, though I'm not sure whether I'd actually have the heart to skin him afterwards. My old master taught me how so as to make money when there wasn't enough in killing people."

"No. He must suffer life," Kitsune growled weakly, feeling how little strength she had left, "death is too good for him, he needs to feel powerlessness for the remaining decades of his life and feel how much of a mess he's made of himself. Katar help me drag him to the pokemon centre, if he lives I'll forgive you for what you tried to get done to me."

_"No, you lack the stamina to do so."_ a voice spoke within Kitsune's mind, _"you have less strength left in you than he does. For now you must sleep so we can repair what damage we can."_

Kitsune was plunged into darkness…


	20. The selling of a soul

**Chapter 20:** The selling of a soul.

_Where am I?_

No scents reached my nose. No sounds came to my ears. No light shone into my eyes. All around me it felt like an infinite distance to anything else, yet it felt like there wasn't enough room for me to move. It did not feel like time could actually pass here, even if it could I wouldn't be able to notice. Such surroundings should have felt lonely, with no signs, but still there was a feeling of comfort I had never felt before.

I cannot even smell my own scent. I cannot even hear my own heat beat. Is this what it's like to be dead?

I tried to gaze downwards at where my front paws should be. For a moment there was nothing. Then it happened. A sound like a pin hitting the ground echoed though my hearing, and faint ripples of pale blue light originated from two places in my vision interfering with each other, as well as being interfered by ripples that must have originated from beyond my sight. From the origin of the ripples, my paws and legs faded into sight with my pure white fur covering them. A slow dull beating rhythm started. Slower and quieter than my heart beat normally was, but still it was there. Still nothing else changed.

Perhaps I am still alive… 

"You came closer to death than any being has ever done without dying. But, yes, you are still alive thanks to your new friends. You actually had to wake up into your dreamscape, thus the dreamscape has to slowly form around you… I'm surprised it happened so fast you didn't even have time for your life to flash before your eyes."

The voice was male, but sounded completely unfamiliar. It sounded like the voice was a result of rocks grinding together; nothing else struck my mind that could create a sound so harsh. Still the accent in the way it spoke pokemon language meant it could be nothing but a sableye.

"Who are you? Show yourself!" I snarled, knowing in this place no other has the right to exist… Then it dawned on me. It seemed just like certain stories I had been told. "You are N'med's brother, N'nim, aren't you?"

"Very clever of you Kitsune." Two red gems, with many facets, that were N'nim's compound eyes glowed in the darkness, illuminating the rest of the black goblin-like body. "I would have thought you'd have dismissed me as a figment of my sister's twisted mind, just like you did with almost everything else she told you… Such disbelief in her and yet you'd still kill anything she pointed you to without question. Such loyalty is rare to have considering she gave you so little."

The sableye waved one of its claws and below us the ripples increased quickly, before leaping upwards. As it quickly changed to many different colours, mainly shades of green, it became a landscape.

"I remember this place."

"Yes, this is one of your memories, so you should remember it."

Surrounding us there was a forest, while both N'nim and I stood in a small clearing. It was what was at the centre of the clearing that was most important. Another white ninetales looking perfectly like me, and a gentle breeze brought my own scent from the ninetales as well as the scent of fresh blood. There the memory of me sat, slowly breathing fire on her blood soaked fur so as to burn the blood off.

_I can no longer breath fire._ Pain struck me, remembering what I had only recently lost and almost forgotten about. _I no longer clean my own fur as much, even if I can use will-o-wisp… Maybe I don't need to as much anymore either. Still it is hard to believe I am watching myself._

A black figure moved upon the ninetales from behind, slowly and carefully, preparing to pounce. Still I fought hard to stop myself from growling; I hated being surprised and this was a memory of it happening. The black figure leaped, landing on the ninetales' neck, putting its claws to the neck.

"I see you made a mess of the person I sent you to deal with," the black figure of the sableye, N'med, spoke as she laughed, being forced to dig the claws in because of the struggling, "or perhaps you actually got hurt this time."

"Please, that human wasn't that much of a bleeder, nor can any human or their pokemon slaves ever touch me," the ninetales growled, it was shocking that I was still the same ninetales. It was just back then, even though it was less than two weeks ago, I hadn't seen a better way for me. This was all just a tough act while waiting for my real chance to make a big difference, while making a minor one on the side. "It's just a small human logging village wasn't too far out of the way, so, since the target was so much of a disappointment, I decided I had some aggression to spare. Don't you dare tell me it was over kill; it saves time to kill them before they end up on your list of threats. It's not like they can think, otherwise they wouldn't be destroying so much."

_Lilac is able to think, she's outsmarted me more than once, never to actually hurt me, and deserves respect for it. If more humans were like her I would never have killed so many._

"It's a good thing you aren't your own master, the whole world would be in trouble if you weren't constantly kept on a short leash." N'med laughed, releasing the ninetales' throat, and dropping to the ground through the ninetales as only a ghost could. "Don't worry, I'm not going to trap you in some isolated valley this time, as I have foreseen a new power awakening that'll join our enemy. This time it is big and too important to let anyone but the best deal with it, as if it joins the enemy, we'll be wiped out within hours. You've got to make sure this human is beyond our enemies reach, it may be only a young female this time, but it is more important than it seems. You'll find her—"

The whole area collapsed back into darkness mid-sentence.

"I can call upon your every memory just like I did that," N'nim spoke with an evil sounding chuckle. "That happened so closely to how my master predicted it, yet your entire personality had to have changed for you to have done what you d—"

Everyone underestimates the depth of a ninetales' personality. I never killed humans out of a hatred for them, but only to stop those I killed from doing more harm. A ninetales always accepts a better way when it is offered.

"—So, N'nim, are you going to tell me you are actually a servant for the nameless enemy N'med always was on about?" I stared back at him as I interrupted, glaring right into his eyes. I couldn't hurt a ghost, but if I showed no fear I may be able to make him think I can. "I thought she was mad, as she never went into details and there was never any evidence. The fact she claimed to have a brother captured and brain washed by the enemy sounded a little off too, as how can a ghost have relatives?"

"Yes, my master is very real, and its name has long been forgotten, as the names of some of its older servants." N'nim merely grinned while meeting my stare. "You've already met one of those old ones, ones great enough to earn eternal youth. Yet you drove her to give up all her obligations to my master and hunt you instead… Deep down she must have had some free will left, and felt jealous at meeting what would have been her replacement. Then you took Katar in as a friend, making it a third expensive piece in my master's set you've caused to be misplaced, including the human girl Lilac. Who do you serve?"

"Wha..?" I was taken back by the sudden question as much as I was by the fact he closed his claws and my heartbeat became erratic as if it was going to stop.

"No creature can possibly do so much damage without a great power giving them orders. I know it is not N'med, as she lacks the mental capacities to think through such things and declared you a traitor when you betrayed her by running off with Lilac. Tell me or I will stop your heart so that even the efforts of the unown you have saved won't revive you. Tell me of your master and your masters goals."

"I serve no one but my self. My goals are my own. I will leave my mark on the world so that even once my thousand years of life come to a close I will forever be remembered, not for the deaths I have caused, but for what I have accomplished."

"Wrong answer"

The claws closed tighter, the pain increased and my heartbeat almost vanished completely. I risked a glance at my paws, and they were fading fast. Death was imminent. I had no technique to harm a ghost like N'nim. Death was a certainty.

N'nim screeched with pain, and released his hold.

"She can only tell you what she knows," a human voice spoke, it sounded female but also sounded too young for me to be sure. Younger than Lilac. "I never told her that she belonged to me, I never told her it was my goals she was to complete."

I turned towards the voice, and there stood a young human, dressed in white clothing that was much like what Lilac would wear. Her hair was identical to Lilac's, though her eyes were completely black, seeming like a void of nothingness like my surroundings.

"Kawaii!" She screamed out; the meaning of the word was beyond my knowledge. She leapt towards me, throwing her arms around me, squeezing me so tight that I could feel it making it harder for me to breath. She rubbed her head into my fur as she continued speaking, "when Twilight said you were cute when I was trading with her for your ownership, it was certainly an understatement. I'm certainly not regretting now owning both your body and soul."

"Twilight?" Both N'nim and I spoke in unison, the difference being that I only spoke in a whisper, shocked by all that I had just heard, while N'inm was clearly shocked by how incomplete the information was. I wanted to rip out the girl's throat, yet somewhere inside me something got in the way. I so wanted her dead for suggesting she owned me.

"Oh… I guess you don't know about that either. Twilight is sort of the alpha female of all the espeons in the All-Weather family's valley, or as any human who knows about it refers to it as estate. I wanted two white ninetales to replace the two I lost, and Twilight wanted a little favour in return. Being an immortal I had to create a human incarnation of myself, risky because human incarnations are in fact mortal, to actually seem like part of the all-Weather family, as that was part of Twilight's plan, more specifically Lilac's little sister."

_She lost two ninetales and thinks she's bought me as one of the replacements?_

With a quick jerk my fangs were at her throat, and I did my best to rip her throat out to silence her. It felt too much like she did own me and wasn't speaking lies, and that was a feeling I hated… Instead of flesh in my mouth, I felt small grains, not of rock but of some sort of plant material, and before me the girl instantly changed into a lot of small white grains which quickly lost their shape as they collapsed to the… ground, for a lack of a better word, and caused ripples as they sank through it.

"Bad ninetales" She giggled from behind me, as if my attempt to kill her was merely showing disloyalty to her but not any intent to cause her any discomfort.

"Who are you?" I growled, noticing N'nim was trying to make himself unseen and forgotten even though he had nothing to hide behind, trying to spy on us. "Why do you think you deserve replacement ninetales after you lost the ones you had? Immortal or not, next time I attack you I'll be sure to make it hurt."

"My name is Inari, with the family name of All-Weather I have merely adopted for the time being. There have always been ninetales loyal to me, though many of them were only loyal for short periods at a time. They served me and represented me, but none were finer than the first two who served me. Both were white ninetales, and their loyalty was always absolute from the start, the other ninetales in fact were more loyal to them than me… then…" Inari began to weep, falling to her knees in sorrow, "I never got used to how human civilization developed… I never thought about it being possible to happen till it did… the three of us were crossing a road… there was this truck…" her sobbing completely took over, ending her story.

"Looks like we have a sensitive lesser immortal, for a moment I was worried we might have had an actual deity to deal with." N'nim laughed, quickly changing his mind about hiding, and charged toward the girl. His claws gleamed even without a source of light in the dreamscape, jumping on her and putting claws round her neck, preparing to slit her throat—

—For a moment it looked to me that replacing her was an identical copy of me, with N'nim really having his claws about to cut a tail. A jolt of pain from one of my tails made me yelp. "May you be stone for a thousand years." Shouting out a curse was never really necessary; just it sometimes made it feel better. I spun around flicking my tail. A stone statue of N'nim flew through the air, fading away to nothing as it did.

"I am not a lesser immortal," Inari actually sounded aggravated, and she had her arms crossed as she stood by my side, "even in a dream a ninetales curse works, N'nim, of course he will shatter on real ground as he is tossed out of your mind and body, into the physical plane. Now that he's gone we can finish up and you can return to your friends."

She walked around to stand right in front of me, and then stared her challenge right into my eyes. I would have lunged, but I had said that my next attack would actually hurt her and I hadn't figured out how to do so in this dreamscape, so I held back. I growled quietly as I refused to back down.

"Twilight let Lilac go with you so she'd befriend and catch you. She actually included in her plan of making Lilac pull one of your tails so you could curse her with understanding of the pokemon language easier, but you miraculously managed that part on your own. You will stay with Lilac till she no longer wants you, which judging by your aggression won't be long, then you'll be handed to me… The nicer and more loyal you are to my 'sister' the longer it'll be before you'll serve me."

"I will not serve you as Twilight had no right to sell me to you and Lilac also has no right to give me to you either."

"A pokeball is recognised even by most pokemon as rights of ownership, and you've been caught in a pokeball. You've drawn bad luck to yourself by not being true to your inner feelings of despair due to the fact you know you are no longer free. One wrong move and you'll be inside that ball for all but a few hours a day… I usually despise such methods of gaining loyalty, but it's the cost I have to pay to get two new white ninetales. Still, you've always had a master all your life, and I promise you I'll do what must be best to be your favourite out of them. I also have some other good news for you, which was the main reason I came."

"What good news can you possibly have?" I fought to maintain eye contact. I couldn't let myself accept she was right, I had to remain free. My tails drooped, my ears flattened, and my gaze slowly slipped… I had lost. "I'm a slave to the will of others, I've been reminded I betrayed my best friend by travelling with Lilac, and I've got more enemies than is healthy. Nothing can make those things seem minor."

"Well, you've been too young to have a lover for quite sometime, right?" Inari giggled, "You'll stop being too young in a few hours. I hope Lilac lets you have fun in the next week, as it's you'll actually be able to find true love… Well, if Lilac tries to separate you from certain other male pokemon, or puts you for certain surgery, it'll mean you won't have some kits this year, or in the case of surgery, not at all. Now wake up and have fun, just remember when you finally meet me in person I'll not remember certain things and be unable to understand you, as I'll have to be more human than I am when I touch dreams like this."

I blinked and there was no more darkness, merely the light of day.

"Kitsune, we were all so worried about you," Lilac's voice was pleasant, but it didn't change the facts. There was a slight hint of fear in her voice. "The unown said there was something messing around in your head that they couldn't remove. I'm sorry if I seem a little frightened, but you seem to of pushed that sableye out of your mind and turned it to stone. It's creepy that ninetales curses are actually real. Oh, also it seems there is a little something with this next week for you that needs sorting out or it'll be a problem…"


	21. Life through the eyes of Biohazard

**Chapter 21: Life through the eyes of Biohazard**  
The dull throbbing in my head was fading fast. That golden ninetales, the one that Omega couldn't see, dodged my attack and I hit something hard. Perhaps a tree, there are far too many of those around for me to be able to run around freely. Lucky for it all trees smell basically the same when so many are around, I'll never be able to find it again.

I sniffed the air, opening my eyes first would just made the throbbing more painful again. There were a lot of scents in the air, the ages of which varied greatly. Clearly there were visitors. The scent of a chansey showed that it was the pokemon centre, though I was not on the cold floor that I would normally be on inside such a place, thus I had to be just outside. Kitsune's scent was rather fresh in the air; she had been though here recently. She must have left the pokemon centre and come back.

I opened my eyes as I got to my feet. My nose hadn't lied to me, neither had my thought on the pain that would be caused by opening my eyes. Still, there was a slight ringing in my ears and I couldn't hear anything else. It would only be temporary; I was promised full immortality meaning such inconveniences would not last long.

I focused on staring at the ground as I walked in; blacks were floating all around the place, all of them seemed to have eyes. They were taunting those of us that were stuck on the ground by floating like that; taunting us that did not have wings. I could not let them look me in the eye and see my envious feelings. Such feelings are not fitting for an immortal like myself.

Following my nose, I slipped though another door and there my master was, hugging Kitsune and weeping a bit. More of the floating black things were in the room, but neither they nor my master were important. The scent of the ninetales meant I had little time to make a better impression than Omega and Katar. Not that that would be a challenge.

I rubbed against my master, looking up, not at her, but my future mate who lay on a bed. She looked asleep, therefore she was. There was a flicker of blue in her snow-white fur, as a grey object seemed to appear out of her, falling to the ground shattering. I could hear the sound of the stone breaking clearly as if my hearing was perfect, it echoing in the lack of being able to hear anything else. Somehow it was important.

There was then movement in Kitsune as she awoke, and a brief conversation between her and my master. The words I still could not hear, the echoing of the stone shattering seemed to be blocking everything else. It wanted to haunt me, as if the stone shattering should not have happened and I was being punished for it. My master's human companion appeared and seemed to speak, leading into more conversation I could not hear and a pink figure out the corner of my eye. It was a chansey, seeming to also be talking. The lack of sounds was starting to wear away at me, then came a single word that broke the power of the echo, followed by more words…

""… neuter her," The chansey spoke, with a hint of madness in her voice, "it'll fix all the problems. Please let me do it, few people want pokemon neutered around here and I really love doing operations like that."

The first word I had heard was shocking, but since it didn't relate to me I had no reason to panic. If I were born immortal it would have been enough to stop me seeking sanctuary, but I still leapt for the first one I thought of. I had a second thought, going for my master's arms instead, but it was too late and I hit my pokeball on her waist with a paw and it opened to engulf me.

I could not think of what it was like in there; it is always so lonely that I black out. Yet I was always awake when I get out. The steps of what to do upon getting out were simple, look around, judging the importance of everything as quickly as possible and figure out whether I had anything better to do than follow whatever order my master would give.

The scenery around me was interesting, with the sand and palm trees, with the ocean quite close by. I look to beside me and Omega, Katar, and Chu were also out, all sitting looking intently at our master. It looked uncomfortable for a pichu to be trying to sit like a dog. There was also a large brutish pokemon, standing on its hind legs, exposing its underside that was in contrast pale compared to the darker top half of its face. It was standing next to my master, looking at the others and me as if inspecting us. There were no floating blacks in sight, a good sign; no Kitsune, a bad sign. All I could do was sit patently; with no females to impress there was nothing but to wait for orders.

"Biohazard, this is Cinder, you missed meeting him earlier because you were unconscious," my master spoke, waving an arm towards the large creature, who towered over me. "He'll be staying with in the place of Kitsune for about a week, a temporary trade with Ryan. Till the week is up we won't see Ryan or Kitsune, we're doing some separate training."

"But after a week it'll mean another year before she'll be receptive again," I spoke, realising instantly that that was the whole point behind separating her from us. Why did I have to be punished like this? I hadn't done anything wrong.

"Cinder, I'm sure you've met all of my pokemon before," Lilac spoke, ignoring my comment completely, "so are you going to help me learn to be a better trainer?"

"First off you should get a new team," Cinder laughed under his breath and I could see flames flicker in his throat. He looked at Lilac, who had crossed her arms and stared back, straight into his eyes. Amazing how she seemed to make him change his mind, as she didn't look too scary to me. "… Okay, maybe you could actually show me how well they react to simple orders. If at least one of them can manage to do a half decent job then maybe there will be hope for them."

"How about a game of fetch?" Surprisingly Katar was the one to suggest it. Looking at him I realised how alien his body language was to me, almost as alien as human body language would have been if I hadn't been raised around my master's family. I could understand why this would make him hard for the others to trust, as it obscured his motives. "It's simple and it'll be fun… oh, I'll go last."

"Fetch, sounds simple enough…" Lilac grabbed a bit of driftwood from the sand, carefully feeling its weight as if working out how to throw it best. "Now, I think Omega deserves to go first." She tossed the driftwood, and as it flew marvelously through the air she called out, "Omega, fetch!"

No initiative, no understanding of even the basics of the task. Omega glanced at the object being thrown and quickly dismissed it, looking back at Lilac. It took a few moments for him to recognise Lilac was embarrassed at the lack of a result and that Cinder was too shocked to talk. All Omega said to justify the lack of result was: "So, how important was what she said? I don't really understand humans."

"…Lilac, I sure hope that he's your worst AND that you have only had him a few days." Cinder's voice was a shocked whisper, "If not you should just give up, a pokemon has to understand commands from its master or there is no point."

"Biohazard," My ear's perked up at the sound of my name; an order would follow that I would obey. If I showed enough intuitive then she might get Kitsune back in time. I looked carefully at the stick in her hand, looking at its every detail. "It's your turn, so fetch."

I didn't even watch her throw it, that wouldn't be very impressive. I just ran off in the opposite direction down the beach, having a quick glance at every bit of driftwood.

"I guess this is another failure," The brute spoke, clearly too stupid to see what I was doing. "He really needs his eye sight checked, he runs into things regularly and this is just further proof he must be blind."

I didn't need idiots like that insulting something because they didn't understand it. I was glad when I was too far away to hear him.

_That piece is too small. That piece is too big. That piece is too twisted. That piece is actually a rock. That piece is perfect._

I picked up the stick and ran back to Lilac with it, dropping it at her feet. "See? I got an identical one to replace the one you threw away. Much quicker than going after the one you threw."

"Um… yes it does look quite similar, a little short though." Lilac said comparing it to the one in her hand… It was the one she threw, but how? I looked around, Chu was busy eating a small pink cube that smelled a little fruity, and there was a line scratched into the sand coming from the direction

"Biohazard, you are even stupider than Omega," Cinder laughed, "while you were gone the pichu ran off and dragged the stick back himself, and promptly ran up Lilac and pulled a sweet pokeblock from an unopened bag. It even closed the bag before getting off her. How does it feel to be outdone by a pichu?"

"I'm immortal, 'Chu Chu' there is not. Therefore I am still better."

"Chu Chu doesn't quite sound as cute when it isn't Sketch saying it. I think naming the pichu merely Chu would work better, fits both with the name given by Sketch and the way Kitsune refers to Chu as chew toy." Lilac spoke before turning to the non-canine dual bladed creature. "Well, I guess it must be Katar's turn. I hope you can prove what happened with Chu wasn't a fluke."

"Actually Lilac, you probably haven't noticed this, but Chu and chew sound very different in pokemon language, much in contrast with how they sound in human language." Katar looked a little smug, though perhaps I was merely misreading his body language. "And nope, Cinder has to go before me. After he's done it I'll prove my worth."

"Well then… Cinder Fetch!"

There was no way such a hulking big mass of flesh could move so fast, even if he had dropped to fur legs. My eyes had to be deceiving me, as the illusion given to me was him moving a decent amount faster than the stick. He stopped ahead of it, turning around and standing on his hind legs in a single movement, lifting a paw to pluck the stick from the air. Then he dropped to all fours and ran back. The stick staying in the paw as he ran on it must have also been an illusion; paws could not grasp things like human hands.

He dropped it at Lilac's feet, though it had broken in two where he had crushed in with his paw. "I suppose I don't get a pokeblock because I broke it?"

Lilac giggled nervously. Was it possible that she was as scared of Cind—No, I could smell her fear, she was more afraid of Cinder than even Kitsune. "Well, I'll think about it. First I'll give Katar a go. Ka—"

Katar slashed at Lilac's legs with the back of his head blade, knocking her legs out from under her. She grimaced in pain cause by such a hit as she fell, but didn't cry out… not that she would have been heard, as the air was filled with the sound of thunder and further down the beach the sand exploded.

"It'll take a few moments for my master to realize she missed with her new toy, so you'll have to follow my instructions precisely if you want to live. You have no chance without having warning about how to dodge the next shot a few seconds before it goes through your head." Katar hissed at Lilac, "As much as I'd love to see your insides splattered all over the place, some things come above my personal viewing pleasure…" 


	22. Ryan’s Intermezzo

This is another guest chapter by GoGoTenda.

**Ryan's Intermezzo: Part the First**

I ran a hand through the mid-length brown hair that sat atop my head, feeling the warmth which the sun had imparted upon it. Kitsune was walking a few steps in front of me, throwing a glance over her shoulder every couple of seconds. It seemed like odd behavior for someone like her. I suppose it could have been me making her uncomfortable coupled with the fact that Lilac was nowhere in sight. We'd split up awhile ago and gone different directions on the dreadfully small Dewford Island. With any luck, we'd at least be a few miles away from each other. In a hope to get Kitsune more comfortable, I quickened my pace until I was even with her. Then I remembered that I needed to get her to trust me a bit more; she didn't seem to like me at all. As friendly as I could, I simply asked, "How are you?"

"Just fine, even though your pokemon have tried to do serious harm to me in the last three days." At this point, it was obvious that any sort of friendly relationship between us would be just about impossible to attain. Still, it was better to try than to just give in to the hopelessness of it all.

"Kitsune, I'm truly sorry about what happened to you. Thorn had no right to hurt you the way he did, and Sketch knows better. Please let them, and myself, make it up to you." As Thorn and Sketch's caretaker, I did deserve some, if not most of, the blame, "now, however, is not a time when I can really do so. We need to find somewhere secluded so you can go spend the week with as little disturbance as possible. Earlier, I found a nice spot in the forest where we could spend the day." Kitsune said nothing, but dropped behind me a bit so that I could lead.

The street we were on turned from poured concrete and asphalt to just the concrete. The buildings faded away and turned back to trees and low plants. There was the soft, constant noise of some bird pokemon chattering, maybe even a mankey howling in response. Eventually, the cement became a dirt path through the ever thickening wood. Great trees were all around, but the wind still carried the scent of saltwater from the beach that was always nearby on this tiny island. I turned off the path and started to creep through brush, knowing that Kitsune was following me even though she was staying silent, true to her species.

Crowded branches gave way to a nearly circular clearing covered by some of the greenest grass I'd ever seen. Little wildflowers poked up every couple of yards, and there was a fairly large sized patch of clover off to the right. I walked into the middle of the clearing and turned to face Kitsune, spreading my arms out. "This is where we'll be staying for awhile." She seemed happy enough to be out in the open air, which made me feel a little better. "Now, I know you're here mostly to get away from the like of Biohazard, but there are other tasks at hand. Lilac would like me to try and teach you a few things about obedience. She'd like me to teach you how to behave and take basic commands, which I'm hoping Cinder is teaching her how to give. I'd like to run you through a gambit of simple orders to see how you react…unfortunately, I couldn't find any treats in town that I thought you might like, and the other options were far too cruel." Lilac and I had almost bought a collar that tightened slightly at the press of a button, but it looked too dangerous and painful for me to actually put on a pokemon. "Now, Kitsune," she had started looking away, "sit."

There was a bit of a pause in which Kitsune obviously thought the command out. It shouldn't have been so difficult to interpret the word 'sit', but then again, human words were sometimes hard to translate. In the end however, Kitsune obliged; she sat down on her hind haunches and looked at me. "Is that it?"

"No, of course not. Lay down." The instant I said it, there was tension in the air. Kitsune's eyes narrowed into a glare, and my ears caught a low growling noise which must have been her. I never thought she'd respond so aggressively towards what was essentially a natural thing to do. I hoped that she wouldn't break out into violence, even though she was probably more than halfway there. "Kitsune, just lay down. This is for Lilac, remember?"

Her eyes narrowed in a predator's glare, causing my heart to beat a bit faster. There was also a noise, a sort of low growling sound emanating from her, "I don't lay down for anyone, especially not for you." She continued to stare at me with a hint of viciousness. Kitsune was a wild ninetales, after all.

"Come on, Kitsune. It's one little command, then we can move on." Between my words and her actions, there was significant gap in which the air itself seemed to hold its breath. Grudgingly, she lay down on the grass, but kept her head up so she could keep an eye on me. Previously, I would have tried the 'roll over' command…but it would be a very bad idea now. Instead, I forced a smile and said, "that's quite enough for right now. Why don't you stand up so we can get to relaxing."

"Is that a command?" She smirked sarcastically, enjoying my increasing discomfort. Of course it wasn't a command; I just wanted to not put her or myself in a dangerous situation.

"It was a request, unless you'd like me to keep giving you orders." That did it, for she stood up and shook herself a bit. Good; I had once again avoided a near disaster, even if I'd been the one causing it. Some things just didn't change, and my accidental self destructive tendencies were some of those things. "As for the relaxing part, Sketch requested that he have time to play with you." Personally, I was against it, but Sketch can hardly be stopped when he's got a notion into his little furry head."

Kitsune seemed to accept this proposal, so I grabbed the pokeball that contained the smeargle. I squeezed it a bit, releasing the pokemon inside. The white light resolved into a smiling Sketch who then bounded forward to Kitsune. "Kitsune! We get to play for a whole week! Aren't you excited?" Yup…I was just thrilled. Kitsune obviously shared my sentiments, but didn't let it show.

"Yes, of course I am." Kitsune smiled and brushed Sketch with a tail, drawing giggles that shook his small frame. She then walked a few steps away until he followed her, then a few more steps, and a few more after that. Soon, she was leading him around the clearing, tails twitching away from his eager hands. It was a dangerous game; if rumors were true, a ninetales could curse those that pull its tails. Kitsune seemed like the type that would do just that, too. I bit my tongue to keep from speaking, and hoped to Lugia that Sketch wouldn't manage to catch her.

Then he tripped. Sketch stumbled over his own tail, making a weak cry of surprise before crashing to the ground. Before I could react, Kitsune had turned on him, crowding over him and doing…something. I couldn't see through her tails, which had covered Sketch from view. Imagining pulling Kitsune away to find the bloody remains of a friend, I rushed over and pushed the tails away. Sketch was looking up at me sheepishly, as Kitsune had held him down started to lick the minor scrape the fall had resulted in. She was trying to clean the wound, despite how utterly superficial it was. Sketch winced as her tongue ran over the broken flesh; scrapes rarely hurt unless touched. I couldn't help myself, I needed to ask. "Kitsune…what are you doing?"

She blinked once and stopped licking. "…I don't know." Kitsune got off of Sketch and stepped away to allow him to stand. He did so, brushing himself off and examining his injury. After reassuring himself that it was really nothing serious, he noticed a wingull nearby and went off to chase it. Kitsune looked up at me, "I honestly don't know what happened. It might have been maternal instincts brought on from being in heat."

"That would certainly explain it. Though, it isn't very normal for a ninetales to care for a smeargle." I threw a glance over my shoulder to make sure Sketch was thoroughly distracted. The wingull was shouting at him while attempting to hop away, which only provoked Sketch to follow it. I turned back to Kitsune. "Ninetales typically hunt smeargle; they're actually one of the fair few predators who even attempt it." Besides having somewhat toxic paint, smeargle were also pod animals adept at defending one another. Since they learn attacks from the other pokemon in the area, smeargle know what they're potential hunters can do and thus create rather ingenious strategies for fighting them off. Ninetales, however, are crafty enough and rare enough that most Smeargle have no idea how to handle them.

"What? Are you saying I'm abnormal for a ninetales?" …not exactly, but yes, that was the general gist of what I had said. I said nothing out loud, which she assumed to mean 'yes'. "Because there are plenty of things you do that are abnormal for a human." Like what? I thought I was pretty normal looking and acting. Besides, she didn't know me well enough to see any flaws, right?

"Such as? Please go on; I'd love to learn about how different you think I am."

"Well, first off, you tend to refer to your pokemon as anything but. It's 'my partners' or 'our team', unless someone else talks about them as 'your pokemon' first. Treating pokemon as equal is a very odd thing for a human to do, especially one appearing as young as you." She had me there, but it wasn't a big deal. Most people would have just assumed that I care about them deeply, which I did. If anything, it made me appear loving and proactive, not unnatural.

"The next thing someone might notice is your lack of scent. Humans tend to smell to pokemon such as myself, and while you do have some scent, it's not a human one." That was the biggest give away I had, for sure. But Cinder always said that I didn't have a scent at all, and it was my understanding that Ditto as a species were scentless no matter what form they were in, with the occasional exception.

"What're you talking about, Kitsune? Ditto don't have any scent at all. If anything, I'd smell like the people I'd been around recently."

"No, there's definitely something there. It's faint, but that doesn't make it any less real." How could she _possibly_ smell something that didn't logically exist? Ditto only produced scent if they were in the midst of mating, and even then it was only a pheromone of a form they were in. A natural ditto had no smell, period. Kitsune was probably mistaking someone else's scent for something she thought was my own.

"Even if you _do_ smell something, there's no way that a human could tell. Only a pokemon with a sensitive nose and a sharp mind would put it together, and even then they wouldn't be able to tell a human. Although…Lilac does have an extraordinary grasp on Pokespeech. She's among a handful of humans across time that have been able to understand pokemon so well…" Now that I seriously thought about it, her knowledge of the pokemon language couldn't be natural. Sure, she may have spent her life with Eevee, but that was one fox-type dialect. With the knowledge she should possess, understanding even related species like Katar or Omega was an impossibility. There was something more to the story; that was for sure…

Just then, there was a gleeful yell from Sketch, who had managed to wander out of the clearing. "There's a beach! Look, Ryan!" I already knew there was a beach nearby, and I thought the salty air would have been enough of a give away. Still, I turned away from Kitsune to look towards Sketch's voice. He must have chased the Wingull all the way to the sand without me noticing. I started walking towards where I thought he was.

"Come on, Kitsune. He won't let us rest until we go to the beach." I cast a glance over my shoulder to check that she was following. She looked like she was thinking about joining me, but also about being somehow disobedient. I tapped a pokeball at my waist. "This one's yours, Kitsune. And I know you don't want to go back inside." No one did, ever. It was a terrible feeling, being trapped inside that tiny little space with no idea what was going on outside. You were cut off from the world with nothing but an empty blackness to keep you company. I hated to use it as a threat, but I couldn't let her just do what she wanted. Kitsune glared at me slightly, and then started walking along behind me, keeping the pokeball within her sight.


	23. Shell shock

**Chapter 23: Shell shock...**

"It'll take a few moments for my master to realize she missed with her new toy, so you'll have to follow my instructions precisely if you want to live. You have no chance without having warning about how to dodge the next shot a few seconds before it goes through your head," Katar hissed at me, barely bearable with the ringing in my ears. "As much as I'd love to see your insides splattered all over the place, some things come above my personal viewing pleasure…"

I glanced around, trying to see how the other pokemon had reacted. Omega was on the ground whimpering, paws over his eyes and his tail and ears completely limp...

"Roll to the left!"

I obeyed Katar without question, hearing another shot a moment after he spoke. I felt the shock wave as it impacted into the ground where I just was. Moving my head to look around must have tipped whoever was shooting at me that I was still alive. Not that it wasn't hard to guess who the shooter was, I had only annoyed one person to my knowledge. In front of me I could see Cinder frozen in fear. A pokemon would defend their trainer to the death but I wasn't his trainer and I doubt he was trained for this sort of situation at all.

"Roll back to the left, and see if you can quickly get to your feet somehow."

A human being ordered around like we do to pokemon. It would probably be considered humiliating if it wasn't a life and death situation. In fact maybe it would still be considered that way. Katar sounded a little nervous; he clearly didn't know my limits and thus didn't know if I could pull it off. I rolled again, barely noticing the third shot, and I focused on rolling faster. I sprung a leg out in front of me, using the inertia of my spin jerk me to my feet.

"Jump backwards!"

I pushed myself in the opposite direction as I had just been rolling with all my might. Sand burst up in front of me as the forth shot hit nothing but sand again. Now I wasn't so restricted in movement as much while having to use Katar's predictions. Still whether I lived or died relied on whether my energy out lasts the number of bullets or not. It was not like it was possible for any pokemon to be able to get to the sniper without being spotted and shot. Shots five and six were easy to dodge. There was a little pain in my right leg but I had no time to look. I barely noticed a flash of red out of the corner of my eye, but it was probably some burst blood vessels in my eye causing me to see red.

"Now it gets a little tougher..."

I didn't like his tone, but a quick glance around told me why he was worried and confirmed my guess as to who was doing this. The rapidash I saw would soon be a problem, but I had to have faith in Katar to tell me how to avoid dying here. I wished Kitsune was here, having faith in her was easier than having faith in Katar. Why did it feel like I missed something when I glanced around?

A jet of fire burst towards me, and Katar didn't even tell me to dodge. It would have been a waste of words anyway, as I had dealt with flareons my whole life. I knew how to deal with the occasional flame thrower. I held my breath and dove into the flames, not away, rolling in the sand. It was uncomfortably hot, but the cover for being seen was an advantage that was worth a few minor burns. The hoof beats chimed on the ground, and I leaped. It was not like Katar ordered me not to.

Throwing ones arms around a rapidash's neck, swinging onto its back and strangling it so as to stop it breathing fire isn't the same as with a flareon. I realized my mistake as soon as I got hold. The flames on a rapidash's body isn't fancy fur, it's actually fire. Hotter than its flame throwers. The pokemon had no trouble shaking me off as I had no intention of holding on any longer as it was. I could hear Katar laughing in the back ground.

"Don't lose balance."

I almost did, being put off with his laughter and the painful burns. Now wasn't the time to yell at him for not warning me, and I managed to stay on my feet, though I stumbled towards the rapidash a bit. I felt rather than heard the seventh shot tear through my new purple dress. Not that it mattered, the dress was already smoldering from being caught is flames. I dropped to the ground and rolled towards the rapidash, ducking under it and dodging another flame thrower from it. It must have been underestimating my agility, but it would catch on soon and then it would be over.

A hoof came flying towards my face, the rapidash and turned far too quickly. I couldn't dodge it. Still, I had to remember I was not the only one in this fight. The rapidash barely missed as its front legs were slashed from under it by Katar and it dropped to its knees. Biohazard came in as a lack streak, colliding full force on the unbalanced rapidash's side. It was no heavy weight like a geodude, so it had no protection against the attack.

There was a flicker of flames. I look on in horror as they spread, quickly Biohazard was nothing but a ball of flames. He rolled in the sand, but it was no use. His toxic sweat must have been flammable. I had to help...

"Lilac watch out!"

Katar sailed through the air into my chest. I had been distracted by Biohazard's plight and the rapidash had gotten up to prepare a kick. Such force, even with Katar sharing the impact with me. There were a few loud cracks. Were those my rips breaking, Katar's, or both of ours?

I lay on the ground where I fell. The rapidash stood over me, staring me in the eye with a smug look. Katar spoke the words that I'm sure the rapidash would have. "It's now over..." I heard the eighth shot. My life didn't flash before my eyes. The shot hit, right in the head, going right through, tearing the skull apart as it did so. It just didn't hit me.

"Just give her time, she needs to rest after what she's been through," Nurse Joy's voice hurt my head, even if she was outside my private recovery room. When or how I got here I couldn't remember, nor how I knew where I was. "I'm sure she'll explain exactly what happened to you for you to put in your police report later, not that it isn't easy to piece together what happened."

"Seven shots from a sniper rifle wielded by an elite assassin don't just miss," Officer Jenny grumbled, "nor can they be dodged by any but the most skilled psychics. Your tests show she isn't a psychic, and none of her pokemon are either. Being able to have a pichu take one of her other pokemon inside its ball, and releasing it right on top of an assassin takes a lot of skill too. Also the rapidash conveniently being shot in the head when that same pichu pulled the trigger of the gun seems suspicious."

I looked down at my leg, at where it had hurt earlier. There were claw marks, Chu must have climbed up my leg to get Cinder's ball. _Why do all the pokemon seem so much better than me in every way? Am I really that far below human standards? If I'm not how can humanity still be on top of the world?_ I shouldn't have even listened to as much of the conversation outside as I did. Around my chest were bandages. I had broken a few ribs as I thought. I could do nothing now but close my eyes, try to get some rest, and hope everything would be alright.

"Lilac, are you awake?" Nurse Joy called out, waking me up. I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep. "Some girl named Ingénuo wants to see you. Apparently she's been around Dewford for a few days after washing up shipwrecked, having assumed this island was uninhabited... sounds like a really imaginative girl, when you listen to her other travel stories. No one can get lost as often as she says she has."

"It'll be nice to have someone to talk to." I spoke without much thought, though I got more of a response than I expected. A puff of flames came from beside my bed, the breather of the flames being out of my view. I started to get up, but the pain of moving knocked my back down into my bed.

"Even if I may be bound by honor to serve you, I do not appreciate you acting like you can't have a conversation with me. Katar told me about your gift, and I would like to be more than a servant to you."

The voice seemed completely unfamiliar, but there was something in it that seemed to scream out that I should know who it was. I paused for a few moments to think, what was it I should be noticing? One can always determine the species of a pokemon by the way it talks. It was just harder to notice the differences when my mind just converted everything into English. Still, who ever it was sounded like a male ninetales, meaning it was probably Huxian.

"Yes, that is my name, and, yes, I am reading your mind. Katar is here too, and he'll be the bearer of bad news as always."

"What is it?" I spoke, trembling to think of the whole fight being not quite over.

"Well, it is quite terrible news." Katar laughed a bit, I could tell he was trying to be funny. "Huxian managed to survive being poisoned, the rapidash is beyond Nurse Joy's help, plus Cinder did kill my old master. Most importantly the chansey here, despite the enthusiasm in that area, refused to neuter Biohazard without your permission no matter how much I hounded her..." His voice quickly dropped to a whisper, as if hoping not to be heard, "…oh, and Omega is missing."

Before I could react the door of the room burst open to reveal my old friend Ingénuo. Still wearing nothing that wasn't light blue, and still having yellow eyes. Those had to be special contact lenses. In her arms was a zigzagoon that looked familiar, something about the way its fur sat, as if hiding a few small scars... It was the one Kitsune saved from the mightyena.


	24. Ryan’s Intermezzo 2

**Ryan's Intermezzo: Part the Second**

"What took you so long! Isn't the beach wonderful?" When we got past the trees, we were suddenly on a warm, white beach that looked like it went on indefinitely in both directions. Sketch was smiling, with sand already clinging to the fur around his feet, hands, and even chest. He'd obviously rolled in it before we'd arrived. The waves were but a few yards away, rolling up on shore and then dying backwards before starting up again. Wingull circled lazily above, cawing and crying at us. Besides us and the birds, the beach looked deserted. Old pieces of driftwood were the only other signs of life. Sketch started to run along the beach, but quickly changed to chasing the waves back into the ocean, and then running away when they came back. He laughed the whole while.

"Yes, the beach is beautiful." I looked down the endless beach then smiled at Sketch. He paused in his game to grin back up at me before continuing to chase waves. I turned to Kitsune, who had sat down. She looked mildly uncomfortable, shifting her rear every few seconds. "That's just sand in your fur. It'll only get worse the more you squirm." Kitsune remained silent, but stopped moving. "Now that we're here, what shall we do?"

"I'm a little hungry…" Kitsune trailed off and looked up at the birds. Her tongue flicked out of her mouth and licked her lips slightly. I stared at her until she turned her head back to me. "But I refuse to eat those wingull. They looked good at first, but they smell badly." No surprise. wingull were scavengers and no strangers to eating whatever they could find.

"I have nothing I could give you right now, though. You could always hunt, correct?"

"Yes, I could. I'll go now before I get too hungry to move." She stood and shook in a vain attempt to remove sand from her fur. Kitsune started to walk away before I decided that letting her go off alone was a bad idea. After all, she was here essentially against her will. There was no guarantee that she'd come back after finding food, not to mention the possibility that her prey shouldn't have been prey at all. Images of trainers finding half eaten pokemon and even the bloodied remains of a human child started to flood my mind before I managed to close such dangerous thoughts out.

"Kitsune, I think I should go with you. You see, I've never been a great hunter and there are plenty of things you could teach me." It wasn't really a lie. I wasn't a great hunter and there were plenty of things she could teach, though most of those would probably disgust me. In reality, I hate even eating other creatures, let alone stalking and killing one.

She eyed me warily before responding. "No. Ninetales hunt alone." Kitsune started walking away again, but I made no move to stop her. If she wasn't going to let me come, then I'd just have to follow her on my own. She paused and glanced back at me. "Wouldn't it be easier for you to transform into my meal?"

"Ha, very funny, Kitsune. Just go before I change my mind about letting you go alone." I could tell that she was smiling as she darted down the beach and into the trees on the side. Sketch walked over and tugged on my jeans.

"Where's Kitsune going?" He looked up at me innocently. It was amazing and a little disturbing that Sketch had forgiven Kitsune so quickly after she most likely destroyed all his paintings. I know Katar confessed, but I just felt that Kitsune was really the one behind it. Katar really couldn't have set anything on fire while Kitsune could have. Though he may have lured her to do it, I still believed that it had been her. I bent down to him and placed a hand on his furry skull.

"She's going to find something to eat, and I'm going with her very shortly. I'm going to leave Glitch here with you while I'm gone, okay?" I smiled and Sketch's eyes brightened. He snatched the pokeball from my hand the moment I pulled it from my belt.

"Glitch hasn't been to a beach before! This'll be fun!" Sketch walked away from me and back towards the water, playfully tossing the pokeball. I sighed and went back to the cover of the forest.

"Alright…I need a form appropriate for tracking with both speed and accuracy. That means a canine in all likelihood. It'll also have to be quick on its feet and able to hide fairly effectively. Something small and fast…" I ran through my memory, searching for anything that fit the criteria. A ninetales would be too big and Kitsune would know that it was a fake. Mightyena were fairly good at stealth, but had worse noses that most other canines. An absol would most likely attract Katar for no real logical reason. There's absolutely no way I'm going to imitate Bio. Of course, there are other pokemon in the umbreon family…perfect! The fastest thing on four legs… a jolteon!

I took off my belt, which still held three pokeballs, and dropped it to the ground. It was the only part of me that wasn't actually _me_, and a jolteon could never wear a trainer's belt. I crouched down on to all fours and started the change. My body was shrinking, my clothes were being absorbed, and everything was turning pink. It was starting…my body was starting to burn with pain. I had to clench my teeth to keep from yelling. My eyes were jammed shut to try and stop the tears as my body twisted and tore itself apart to return to my natural state. I could tell that I was back to the way a Ditto should be, so I took a short break to catch my breath.

Transforming shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't have to feel each little motion setting my nerves ablaze. Sure, it was probably compounded from too long in one form, but it had always been like this. I hated changing, but I needed to continue.

Four limbs started to grow out again, coated in bristly fur. The torso and abdomen took shape; a small, dog-like body. Pointed ears grew back from my developing head. When the movement and pain stopped, I opened my eyes. The world was in grayscale now, which was a little disorienting. Immediately, I looked myself over for mistakes. There were none that I could see, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My ears were twitching at each little noise, but my nose was picking up everything. I had no idea what any of these scents were, except one. Even my human nose could smell Kitsune; a jolteon could easily follow it. I locked on to the scent and started following it through the trees.

I found Kitsune near the bushes on a much wider section of beach. There were people here, tons of them. They were wading in the water, basking on the beach…what could Kitsune possibly be doing? Something in the back of my mind was bothering me. It was saying that I was being careless. What did it mean? It clicked and I knew what it was. Kitsune was in heat and I was a compatible male. I had subconsciously picked a male form because that's what I was used to. Hurriedly, I did a minor transformation into a female jolteon and resumed watching Kitsune.

She was merely sitting just on the edge of the beach, watching the humans. Her eyes scanned across the beach, heading towards me. Quickly, I crouched low in the brush and stayed that way. Kitsune didn't seem to see me, but she did see a child. The child had seen her as well, and had begun walking towards her. The girl was obviously intrigued by the white fox, but Kitsune's eyes looked sinister to me. She was planning something that I wouldn't like, that was for sure. I swallowed a lump and hoped to Lugia that she wouldn't hurt the girl. Kitsune stepped backwards into the brush and was obscured from view.

The girl paused, considering following Kitsune. Instead of turning around like she should have, she starting moving forward again. I had to do something to protect her from Kitsune. If she got within Kitsune's reach, there would be nothing I could do. I needed to act now. I leapt from my hiding place and landed in front of the girl, growling as best I knew how. She sort of jumped back in surprise and a tiny bit of fear. It wasn't enough to send her away, though. I started charging a small shock attack, feeling my fur stand up as the static built up. Little blue forks of static danced around me and the threat of an impending attack caused the girl to turn and run. When she was gone, I let the electricity discharge harmlessly and ceased my forced growling.

"What are you doing?" Kitsune's voice was coming from behind me. I'd let her sneak up on me, foolishly. "And why are you brown?" That last part came with surprise on my part. Brown! But I thought I looked fine…in grayscale. If anyone with sense saw me, they would try to capture me for the 'unique' color.

"I guess I made a mistake in my transforming. All I'm trying to do is make sure you don't do anything wrong, such as luring small children to their deaths. Care to explain what _you_ were doing, Kitsune?" I turned around to face her, even though she was easily twice my size now.

"…no. I'd prefer it if you leave me alone while I hunt now."

"So you were hunting, like I suspected? Well then, I really can't leave you alone now. Lilac trusts me to keep you out of trouble. It'd be very bad for both of us if you were eliminated for being a dangerous pokemon. Hunt something normal so we can get back to training."

"I didn't think you'd want me to hunt something normal because you'd think it was dangerous. I was going to hunt gyarados..."

"Of course I wouldn't want you to do that! Besides the fact that, as a fire type, you could easily drown in the ocean, gyarados could swallow you whole without even realizing it. Then you tried to go to something 'less dangerous' that could get you hunted for murder. You have _no_ concept of relative danger. Why don't you just go to the forest, find some linoone, and eat them?"

She sighed a long, drawn out sigh/ "But I'm tired of those rats…" I was suddenly angry at her. She had nearly killed a kid to get a meal when actual prey animals were all over the place. Now she had the gall to effectively tell me 'no'? I wasn't taking care of her because I wanted to and she was abusing the fact that I couldn't lay a paw on her without fear of hurting Lilac.

"Kitsune, please just do what I say. I don't want to fight about this; I just want to get back to Sketch and the others." I was forfeiting and she knew it. Kitsune smiled enough to reveal pearly fangs which made me nervous. I was suddenly very aware of just how much bigger than me she was. I had managed to give her even more power: how could I have been so foolish? "Please, Kitsune."

"Alright, I'll return with you to Sketch if you let me hunt gyarados." Simple bargaining behavior; if you want this, then I want that. Even though I'd rather not have her hunt gyarados at all, I thought it'd be safer for all involved if she was at least near a source of help. The sooner I could get back to being human, the better anyway.

"Agreed. You lead the way." Kitsune nodded and started down the beach the way I had come. I followed after, acutely aware of tiny grains of sand starting to work their way in-between my paw pads. It was far more uncomfortable than the 'sand in my toes' feeling due to the fact that it clung to fur, too. I looked around Kitsune and saw Sketch sitting on the beach and looking up at what I knew to be a blue and pink pokemon (though my jolteon eyes read everything as gray).

Its body was jagged and angular, seemingly comprised of boxes and blocks. What could be considered a head was tapered somewhat and contained two large, white eyes that stared endlessly. It had only two 'legs' which were really more like triangular feet, and a small tail-like structure stuck up from the back. Tail, feet, and a few other patches were blue while the rest was pink. The most striking feature, however, was an odd pattern that ran across its body. All over the otherwise smooth surface were tiny black fissures like lightning, which forked and spread around edges and across planes. As we neared, the closest pupil swiveled to track us and Kitsune began to slow. It spoke in a mechanical, though soft, voice. "Ryan, I see that you are back."

"Yes, I trust that you kept Sketch safe?"

"Affirmitive." The Porygon floated lower to the ground so that he was merely hovering an inch or so above the sand. Kitsune had stopped a few feet away from it, but I continued past her until I stood next to the Porygon.

"Glitch, this is Kitsune. Kitsune, this is Glitch." I nodded towards them respectively, and then waited for Kitsune to respond. Glitch replied first, looking towards Kitsune and bowing as best it, I mean, he could.

"Greetings, Kitsune."

Kitsune didn't return the gesture and simply kept eyeing Glitch. She finally broke the silence while only throwing me a quick glance. "What is it?"

"…he's a Porygon, a man-made pokemon. He's nothing to be afraid of, Kitsune." She listened to me then stepped closer before reaching out a paw. Gently, she tapped Glitch on the front end of his head before quickly pulling away.

"Why are you pawing me?" Glitch asked in his calm voice with only a hint of curiosity. He didn't _need_ to know, he just wanted to. Using such apathy made sure he wasn't disappointed when Kitsune didn't respond to him but instead turned to me.

"It sounded intelligent for a moment there." Wait, did she really just say that? Glitch's eyes widened momentarily before returning to their neutral laziness. Kitsune was running the risk of upsetting him, but she had no idea what that would mean. "Why does it look so cracked?" Good, a chance to steer the conversation in a better direction, if only a slightly better direction.

"He looks that way due to a minor problem during his creation. There was a corruption which altered his appearance, among other things. That's why Glitch has all those cracks…many people would consider him 'broken'. In fact, if I hadn't found him, he was going to be deleted."

"Deleted?"

"Glitch was created by computer and can travel between the physical and the virtual realms. Thus, he can be deleted with the appropriately equipped computer."

"Oh, so it's a ghost." Kitsune relaxed and sat back on her haunches. "Only ghosts can go between planes."

"I can't go between planes, and I'm not a ghost." Glitch spoke up again, but I shook my head to keep him from continuing. I moved my mouth so that he could read the speech patterns I was soundlessly imitating. Silently, I managed to tell him to 'drop it'. He seemed to understand, as he floated back up a few feet into the air.

"Yes, Kitsune, Glitch is a ghost." If that's the way she felt most comfortable thinking about him, then there was no reason not to go along with it. She seemed much happier with believe that he was a spirit and a happy Kitsune was, at least in this case, a good thing. Keeping her happy also meant letting her hunt gyarados, as my memory informed me. "Kitsune, if you want to hunt gyarados, now is the time. Sketch, stay near the shore while Kitsune goes to hunt."

Kitsune ran off to the water's edge and stared to wade in. Normally, this would be a very bad thing for Fire pokemon, but she had talked about it as if she'd done it before. As such, I could trust her enough to know that she knew what she was doing. If anything unexpected happened, Glitch and I would be more than enough to help her. While Kitsune went further out, I snuck back into the forest to return to human form. Once Kitsune was done eating, then we could get some work done…


	25. Ingénuo's diary

**Chapter 25: Ingénuo's diary**

Day 1

Dear Diary:

Sure technically I should still be using the date, but I feel it is more symbolic to ditch all my old ways. I'm finally a pokemon trainer, clinging to things that are the normal for life in towns and cities like the date is not for me anymore. I am free to roam and live by my own rules. Still, keeping a diary of my life helps keep my stress level under control.

I am a little worried about Lilac though, sure she got a better head start than me on her pokemon journey, being given a ninetales as her first pokemon, but she looked like she's lived a way too pampered life to really know what she's doing. The casual attitude wasn't the only give away, as even if her clothing didn't look like much I can just tell it was made of woven together strands of expensive fur... probably eevee fur, just like my uncle wears, though apparently such clothing is made only from fur steaded during spring.

My day started off far too normally considering what was going to happen. I slept in till noon, got up, got dressed, pretended I had been up for ages and then ate lunch. I'm thankful my parents never check in on me, thinking I'm a perfect little angel. Still such grace and perfection seems to come easy for me as long as I remember my parents will only be so trusting as long as they hear nothing that says they shouldn't be.

Then it wasn't too long before I found myself at Professor's Birch's lab. What a disappointment. The place was nothing like I expected, no weird bubbling test tubes, no unidentifiable lab equipment, absolutely nothing that looked like it belonged to a mad scientist from some cheap horror movie. I know Birch mainly does field research, but that's no reason for his lab to be so boring.

I politely informed him of which starter I wanted from him, and was a little surprised that I got my first choice. What are the chances that that the other two trainers had a different opinion on which starting pokemon they wanted? Well, considering I only chose Torchic because I heard those two idiots deciding to race each other to be the first up so as to get the torchic, the chance should have been zero. Not my fault they slept in longer than I did.

And so my journey began. A quick walk and I was out all alone, with a map in my hand, a slight worry that perhaps Lilac didn't have a map at all, and unable to think of an appropriate name for my first pokemon. I set up camp when the sun started to set, and had a little play time with my torchic... she certainly wasn't as harmless as Kitsune, but I finally convinced her to be helpful and light a fire. Pokemon training doesn't seem hard so far.

Day 2

Dear Diary:

Despite it still being winter, the southern part of Hoenn is never really cold at night. At least that's what I though before last night. If it wasn't days away from it being February I would of frozen to death out in the wilderness. Still some hot food and drink cooked on a fire lit by torchic made up for it. I'm glad got the fire starter, those other two idiots will probably not make it very far without such a great fire lighter... I'm sure even Lilac would do better than them, due to having a handy fire pokemon herself.

It struck me on this second day of my journey of how few pokemon I was actually seeing. I only caught the occasional glimpse of some yesterday, but it never really sunk in till now. How could I catch any pokemon if I could never come close. Still, it wasn't long till I noticed a single zigzagoon following me. It was getting far closer than any other pokemon had, but it didn't look too strong even if I didn't count the nasty looking bite marks on it that looked like they only just started to heal. Certainly not worth catching, at least that's what i thought then

It's amazing how one's walking speed increases when they are being followed, I thought I was making great time. I was wrong big time. It wasn't too long before the zigzagoon darted out in front of me, then darting off. It kept coming back and darting off in the same direction. I thought at the time it must have been going insane due to some infection in the bite injury. Not my problem, so i just ignored it till I realized how long ago I should of reached town.

Finally the zigzagoon got to me, it was getting dark and I should of reached town hours ago. It led me right to town in less than ten minutes, before vanishing. How could a stupid little pokemon navigate better than me when it didn't even have a map? Thanks to it I get to spend the night comfortable in a pokemon center, but next time i see it I'll catch it for sure.

Day 3

Dear Diary:

The day the storm was hitting Hoenn. Not like such a thing worried me, my ego was inflated due to being a pokemon trainer. It seems like I learn more about my misconceptions about pokemon training everyday. Bad weather is bad weather no matter what you do with your life. Still I had most of the day to travel safely, so I wasn't a complete idoit.

The zigzagoon showed up again, trying to indicate that I should go back to town. It was either quite attached to Oldale, or it knew what was coming. Still it gave up after the first hour and merely followed me, darting off only when I called out torchic to battle. Wild pokemon are such cowards. Another day without seeing many pokemon, getting a second pokemon looks a little unlikely at this rate. It was when the zigzagoon got in front of me and seemed to be trying to lead me across the country side that I really gave up on catching it. It was trying to keep me close to all sorts of empty caves, hollows in the ground, any place which would be good for when the storm hits. I refused to follow such a zig zaged path and rushed ahead.

Late afternoon the storm hit. I was caught of guard, the strong winds actually knocked me over and knocked my back pack open, though I didn't lose anything too important apart from the dairy I wrote in before starting this journey and my pokedex. I was panicked and in trouble, the winds quickly getting worse. If the zigzagoon hadn't reappeared, then I would have been done for. Battered up as I was when we got to a hollow in the ground to rest in, the zigzagoon was in much worse shape. The bite wound had been reopened, thus i did my best to treat it but there will certainly be a bit of scaring.

I know it is unfair, but I sort of accidentally dropped a pokeball on the weakened zigzagoon and I'm certainly not letting it free now. I think I'll name it ziggy, I mean it's name isn't as important to think about compared to my starter pokemon.

Day 4

Dear Diary:

Too tired to write much. I awoke to a familiar looking girl lighting a fire just outside the hollow I slept in. She slept there with me after she fond me fast asleep. When I said familiar, I meant I had seen her on TV, as she got second place in the Jhoto league tournament last year. Quite a mark of achievement. Her name is Kenni and she's going the same way as me and actually gave me quite a few tips on pokemon training. It's actually quite exhausting and frustrating work, the training part of being a pokemon trainer. I can't believe I forgot to do any of that the past 3 days. Lilac is either forgetting about training too or suffering far more than me.

Day 5

Dear Diary:

Plane and simply, the map helps with nothing when you are lost and Ziggy can't seem to help navigate here. Kenni says its because he's outside his home range, not that it's out of spite for being captured, but I'm not so sure. Still, she also yelled at me a bit for referring to Ziggy as an 'it' when he's clearly male. As if a pokemon cares about whether you know its gender or not.

Day 6

Dear Diary:

Yep, we're still lost. Still, Kenni says being lost actually gives a trainer the time required to train their pokemon. A quick stop at a lake to train and I got to see the pokemon she had, really it wasn't surprising she hadn't changed her team since the league. I collapsed mid afternoon and had to rest with my back to a tree. While noting how my torchic certainly didn't like being near so much water, something fell out of the tree and onto my face. Not the way I like to catch pokemon, but my head was harder than its, and I caught it before it regained consciousness. Adding a slakoth to my team wasn't the only good thing it brought, but knowing what sort of areas they live in just proved we over shot Petalburg city somehow... A chance to have a night in a bed in a pokemon center was too good to inform Kenni that there was no gym there.

Day 7

Dear Diary:

It's hard to write while riding on the back of a gyrados. But when we finally found Petalburg City and then were told that Rustborro gym was temporarily closed due to serious injury of one of the gym leaders pokemon we had to change our plans a bit. Kenni certainly wasn't going to wait around doing nothing so we had to move on to the next nearest gym. No boat from Petalburg to Dewford island, and Kenni didn't want to waste time going all the way to Rustburro just for a boat. Somehow she convinced me an overnight ride on Rage, her gyarados, was a great idea. Rough scales, waves splashing over me occasionally, plus having to hold on if I don't want to fall off is not my idea of a good night's sleep.

Day 8

Dear Diary:

I hate Lilac. She is so annoying. I found out as soon as I reached Dewford that he had been injured, so i went to visit her. She's already got 6 pokemon, including two ninetales, an absol, and an umbreon. Ninetales, absol, and umbreon aren't meant to even be in the areas she's been though. No trainer is that good, how could she possibly have that sort of luck? Not to mention the fact she never gotten lost even though she's never carried a map with her.

The absolute worst part is she's actually got the guy who got fourth place in the Jhoto league, Ryan, training her starting pokemon for her. A pokemon trainer is meant to do the hard work themselves, not pass it on to someone else when it gets the slightest bit difficult. Kenni seems annoyed about it too, but she's unusually nonvocal about it. Something about Ryan gets on her nerves more than a trainer like Lilac can. Perhaps Ryan's her ex-boyfriend?

Things get worse from there. She explained what happened to her, with stories of the adventures she's had. I mean, she gets all the luck, powerful pokemon with little effort, exciting things like an assassin after her, and a friend who is willing to train her pokemon for her. Then she asked me to find her mightyena that had run away due to being shot at. Passing off the hard work again, but i couldn't say no due to her condition.

When one thinks of Dewford, they think of the beach front and tanning themselves in the sun. Most people wouldn't even know of the swamps further inland. I spent several hours searching those swamps with Kenni and a few of Lilac's pokemon. Tracking down a lost pokemon through rouge and dirty terrain like that is only made worse when the tracks end up leading round in a loop and back to the pokemon center. Mightyena are meant to be impossible for beginner trainers to handle, it's meant to be impressive for a trainer to have one under control, but again Lilac got that the easy way by having the wimpiest mightyena ever.

To top it off Lilac wanted to trade pokemon with me. How could she be so stupid not to know the value of her own pokemon? She wanted to trade Huxian, her male ninetales, for Ziggy. She pities me and wants to trade just so she doesn't feel so bad. How can she possibly do such a thing? Does she realize how bad that makes me feel about my accomplishments? Sure, I traded, a ninetales is always a great pokemon to have mainly due to their life span. Most pokemon reach their peak after a little over 5 years then start to get weak, usually dying before the age of 20, but a ninetales is certain to out live the trainer, thus no stress of losing a partner, plus they don't suffer effect of aging and thus never stop getting stronger.

Kenni wants to get the gym battle over with as quickly as possible before moving on, as do I. I have to get some distance between me and Lilac if I'm going to becoming strong enough of showing her how bad a trainer she really is. From now on I'm her rival, and it's my job to make her feel how hard things can be...


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